Replacing my swim step

Ive gone over my 32 year old teak swim step and its just not worth repairing it again,its been repaired a thousand times before I got Her,and cobbled at best. There is a company that makes replacement decks of plastic teak somthing,I cant remember,hell gettin old, cant remember last night dinner,but I can tell you what the piston and ring size of an engine that I havent seen in 20 years.* Any body got a plastic swim plat form?BB

I've got one that is made of Starboard that is probably 10 years old. Low maintenance but it is now showing long striations/cracks that are unsightly although they don't appear structural. It also is warping a little bit. Has teak strips for non-skid purposes. Came with boat so don't know who made it. Here's a broker's pic from when boat was for sale 2 owners back.

Let me know if you turn up any good leads. Irene did a job on mine, and* I'm thinking about just removing it, maybe just put a ladder back there in case I need to fish someone/something out of the water.

I built my own. It's starboard on the top surface with an aluminum frame underneath.** The outside edge is 3/16 x 3 aluminum covered with vinyl dock eding.* Starboard is good material, but in my mind it isn't stiff enough to use on its own.* I have had 4 or 5 fat guys on at once, it is really solid.* Starboard* is expensive.* I boat a 5 x 8 ft sheet from a plastic supplier at wholsale.* It was about $400 7 or 8 years ago.* Buying the same sheet thru a marine source would have been nearly double.* The aluminum was 1/4 x 2, 1/4 x 3, 3/16x3, all flat*, 2 x 2 x 1/4 angle, 1" pipe and 1" round.** All was 6061 grade.** By memory, the aluminum bill was about $400.* The frame is all welded.* The bolts you see were put there for fit up.* The joints they hold were later welded for strength.* It really wasn't that hard to make, but there are some tricks to fixturing the frame, and bending the aluminum outside edges to perfect radii.** I would be glad to explain if someone is really interested.* It didn't take a big pile of tools either.* I used a sawzall, a power miter saw, drill, 4" disk sander, pop riviter, drill press, clamps, screw drivers, and router for the edges of the step / storage box, and propane torch for bending the starboard and 'healing' the edges to remove tool marks.

The pictures you see are my old Trojan cruiser.* This winter I intend to cut it in half down the center, then add about 30" in the middle, and reweld.* The starboard top will have 2 joints.* this will increase its width to fit my Californian.

I was hoping there might be a company that builds them that allready has patterns. Tell them you have a 1979 ,36' so and so and they make and send it out. We allways kept the templates we made at TDS, for the next deck . BB

Very nice job Craig. My platform is shot and I was thinking about going the pipe welders route out of polished tubing like a T-Top. Was undecided about the covering material, maybe a synthetic decking product like Trex or something.

Talk to Seahorse who had his made by a guy back east. It's real teak, though, and looks great. Didn't cost a king's ransom, either.

FlyWright wrote:
Talk to Seahorse who had his made by a guy back east. It's real teak, though, and looks great. Didn't cost a king's ransom, either.

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Every thing is relative. Would love to have a new teak one made but, due to cost, am thinking about making my own. The winters are long here so I have the time if I can find the teak at price that doesn't break the (small) bank.

Several years ago I extended my swim step.*

The original was slatted Teak, similar to most Taiwan built 80s trawlers.* Trouble was, it was next to useless, too narrow to walk on without hanging on, to narrow to sit on without feeling like you were in danger of falling off. Approximately 20 inches deep, which may sound like a lot, but with the slope of the transom taking out a few inches, and with davits attached to the transom taking out several more inches, only about the outer 8 to 10 inches were useful.

On my last boat, A sailboat with a fairly broad transom, I added a swimstep.* I made it our of fibregalss, from a female mould, and had SS supports welded up.* For Retreat, I wanted to retain the original appearance.

The extended version in 33 inches deep and results in safety and comfort. The picture shows the completed step.* I bought 2 teak planks,* 2x8x14', and a smaller one, 1.5x8x10', for about $500.00.* From those I cut strips to match the originals, and fitted them all together between the original swimstep and the transom, so as to re-use all of the original step. I turned it over, so as to put the weathered surface on the bottom and to match the new with the unweathered former bottom surface.* I had to buy new supports, as the original supports were not in good shape, and couldn't be easily adapted to the new length.* I had those made up out of stainless steel. I don't recall how much I paid for the SS fabrication, but it didn't seem like a lot at the time.* I was also able to adjust the height off the water, which I raised a couple of inches, and I put all of the attachment bolts above the water line.* I also had to extend the ladder, so it would still stand against the transom and deploy just over the stern edge of the swimstep.

The level of woodworking skill required is not high.* Lots of clamps are required, for when the pieces are being assembled.** I think the appearance is quite inconspicuous, it looks like it was always that size, which was the plan.

I also extended mine by 7 inches for the reasons mentioned above.* I bought a used platform for $75 and disassemblred it, then added it to the existing platform against the boat. In the pic the solid section is what I added.