What you have to
know straight away is that, like anything, teak decks need looking
after. If you take care of your decks they may last 20 years plus, if
you don’t you’ll be
appalled at how awful they look after half a decade. Because solid teak
decks has been
the norm for hundreds of years they have understandably earned a
serious reputation for
longevity. Today’s teak decks are not the same thing at all.
In most cases modern teak decks are little more than a quick way for
the manufacturer
to up the “class” of their product. They are poorly
fitted, the wood is too thin, the caulking
gap is usually too narrow. Because of the minimal amount of wood
involved the best
plug on the deck might only be 3 mm deep. Likewise the caulking, unless
of adequate
depth and width will not remain glued as the wood moves. However all
these problems
would amount to little is folk were advised on teak deck care. The most
important advice
is to wash the deck every week but few people can spare the time.
It’s quite simple
however, if you don’t wash your deck regularly it will soon
go grey and dirty.
DO NOT SCRUB your deck. I’ve seen it done, the owner is
standing there, his trouser
legs rolled up, his knees red. True his deck looks great….
From the pontoon. If you look
carefully you’ll see grooves in the planks where the softer
areas of grain have simply
vanished. This is how it starts, Consider that you began with a lovely
smooth surface,
like a CD if you like. After a scrubbing it looks more like an LP but
worse, much worse. Imagine now how quickly the “peaks” will wear down
as you walk on them. Of course it
doesn’t end there, this is only the beginning.
If you must have a clean deck then there’s only one way and
that’s a gentle wash with
nothing more violent than a light detergent and a large sponge or very
soft brush. If you
do this regularly you will not wear down the teak but you will wash off
the dirt before it
gets ingrained. Dirt contributes to the wear on a teak deck. If this
approach doesn’t work
then you can try oxalic acid. Dissolve some crystals in warm water, do
not breathe the
vapours and wear gloves. It burns. DO NOT SCRUB. Rinse well. Oxalic
acid should not
harm anything on the boat except your skin. There are plenty of
products that do the
same thing but cost a lot more. If acid doesn’t bring back
the colour then there’s only one
thing left to do if you want a lovely looking teak deck and that is to
sand it. But if you want
my advise, continue to wash it carefully and often with soap and live
with the deck not
looking it’s best.
For some reason no one listens to me. I gladly advise people on how to
look after their
decks for free even if it means I don’t get any work.
It’s better for everyone, except me,
that you take my advice. Yet despite that I still see people scrubbing
their teak. I shake
my head in wonder. Did I not explain what would happen if they
scrubbed? “But it looks
so great!” they say. “So what’s the
problem?” The problem is that the next time they see
their decks they will look grey and dirty again and the only difference
will be that there is
less teak there now than there was before. If your feet
don’t wear down the peaks then
they’ll fill up with dirt making it look even worse and
there’s only one way to get it out.
More scrubbing. This time you’ll have to scrub harder to see
a result. Can you see what’s happening? There will come a point soon when you decide the decks are
looking
pretty rough and need a good sanding.
Boatyards are very keen to do this work for you and why not, next time
you see the boat
it will look great and they KNOW you’ll be back because soon
the caulking will start to
roll out in long spaghetti like strips and the plugs will fall out
exposing the screws and
making water ingress all the more likely. Now you’ve really
got a problem. The plugs are
not too much trouble but there will be hundreds to do. The real problem
is the caulking.
Just because some comes out really easily does not mean that it will be
all like that. No,
some of it will be sticking just like the manufacturer intended. You
can make a special
scraper to remove it but inevitably you will slip and damage areas and
worse you will
enlarge the groove. If you’re really lucky you might be able
to use a router for about 35%
of the deck but routers are vicious and it’s all too easy to
make a mistake. Even a small
enlargement of the slot will look terrible. Not only that but
you’ll need a curved guide to
run the router along for each slot. This takes ages. Bad enough if
you’re doing it yourself
but unbelievable if you’re paying a yard. Specialist tools
exist but they are hideously
expensive and it’s only the specialist yards that are likely
to have such a tool but they will
be charging by the hour and there’s always a lot of work on
any teak deck.
So what are the options now your deck is worn out? You can’t
just remove it because
underneath it will be horrid. If it was laid properly in the first
place they will have keyed in
the surface, that means a grinder on a plastic boat. You’ll
still have to cover the decks to
cover the mess. You can use Treadmaster which is a very good surface
and lasts as
long as teak if it’s glued down properly. Trouble is
it’s not the same is it? It might be
cheaper but it’s not a teak deck. You can lay an artificial
teak deck. There is a plastic
like lino you can lay but it looks like lino and not teak. There is
even a special decking
you can buy that appears to be made of sand and crushed stone in a nice
terracotta
colour. You lay it like teak with caulking and all. It
doesn’t look like teak either and I
wouldn’t want to slip along it. If anyone knows a really good
alternative to teak I’d be
delighted to hear about it.
Personally I would chose epoxy and cloth coated decks covered in non
slip deck paint
for a wooden boat and the standard non slip pattern on a GRP boat. Both
are easy to
clean, practical and hard wearing and keep the boat cooler below in the
heat of the
summer. Also I believe that laid decks on small craft can make them
look a bit fussy.
Other than painted decks there appears to be no realistic substitute
which is a real
shame since teak is a tropical hard wood and that means it’s
taken decades to grow
and it’s probably not being replaced.
So I hope that you can see that I’m advocating care and
prevention for your lovely teak
deck. To just leave it uncared for is an outrageous waste of a precious
resource. If that
isn’t enough to make you care for your deck, then consider
the cost of replacement.
Teak costs approx £3000 a cubic metre. But you’ll
need a lot more than you think
because just cutting down a big plank to size wastes a hideous amount
of wood. The
cost of the teak is a large part of the final bill. Basically you can
quadruple the price of
the teak to take into account the cost of first measuring and photographing the original
deck to insure everything fits properly, the cleaning up of the surface
underneath and
finally replacing the wood. To do the job properly you may have to
remove the chain
plates and that means dropping the mast and completely readjusting it
afterwards. Not
only that but all those deck fittings that haven’t been
touched for years will need to be
removed and in the process don’t be surprised if many of the
bolts are hell to remove or
break in the process. It’s possible that some of the bolts
were made specially or have
been glassed over. You’ll need somewhere to do all this,
perhaps it’s possible to make
a good cover but even this adds to the cost. The alternative is to put
the boat in a shed
somewhere. Anything is possible but it always costs. Replacing a teak
deck is a
massive job. I laid a teak deck on a 6 metre boat and it took about ten
days of frantic
activity and it was a very simple deck with no joggled planks and no
joins. To replace the
decks on a 30 footer is 6 weeks work. 3 months for a 50 footer. We are
talking about
many thousands of pounds and your boat out of action for a while.
There are other considerations before you decide on a teak deck. They
weigh more, the
sikaflex being surprisingly heavy, not to mention the wood and the
thousands of screws.
Perhaps what worries me most about laid decks on Fibreglass boats is
that you have to
make thousands of holes in an otherwise perfectly waterproof surface to
hold the deck
down. Many fibreglass boats’ decks are balsa cored, that is
to say that the deck is
made of two layers of fibreglass with a layer of balsa wood in between.
Balsa wood will
not last long if it gets wet yet this strikes me as very likely. The
law of averages suggests
that, the chances of making 2000 holes in a deck, and them all staying
waterproof for
years on end is pretty slim. What happens when the balsa is rotted
away? I think not
making thousands of holes in a deck like this is wise. It is possible
to lay a deck without
screws but it takes longer and therefore costs more.
So let’s sum up. Teak decks are nice to live with and they
look good. On the down side
they are expensive, add weight where you don’t want it, soon
look dirty, are vulnerable to
red wine and sun tan oil and can get so hot in the summer you cannot
walk on them. So
what can you do about it? For my money I’d choose the
standard non slip fibreglass
moulding that comes with the boat or an epoxy cloth coating on a wooden
yacht. I might
have teak in the cockpit but basically I do not consider a teak deck to
be a sensible thing
these days. In days gone by teak was the obvious choice but things have
changed. We
are aware that teak comes from tropical rain forests and we all know
that deforestation
is contributing to global warming which is harming our planet but still
yachts are sold with
teak decks. Just consider for a moment how many yachts there are in
your marina.
Probably 30% have teak decks. (It’s more like 50% in the med)
That’s quite a few boats
and there are a lot of marinas in the UK. Then there’s the
rest of Europe to take into
account, Australia, New Zealand, USA In fact there must be millions of
teak decks out
there. It’s true to say that if people chose not to have a
teak deck there would be a lot
more trees in this world.
Sadly the whole yachting world is convinced that teak decks last
forever and need
nothing more than a good scrub once in a while to keep ‘em
looking good. It’s simply not
true. Remember when CD’s came out nearly 20 years ago, how
they boasted that you
could scratch them and they could still play. What Nonsense. If you
want to make your
decks last longer, consider covers. No one wants to spend money on
“posh” covers to
protect their boat. “Oh no, covers are expensive”.
I hear said. Covers are “initially”
expensive but they will repay their cost several times over. Not only
will you not be
required to replace your decks but you’ll be able to sell
your boat for more because it
has obviously been well looked after. It’s not just teak
decks that will benefit from
protection, Perspex windows, instruments and gel coat will all last
longer if kept out of
the sun, wind and rain. The Grand Canyon was created by erosion from
the elements.
When you think like that surely you can understand why I recommend
covering up. We all
know that the sun can burn skin and give you cancer yet we leave our
boats outside
soaking up this energy for years at a time. It’s worse for a
teak deck because it is laid
horizontally and gets the full force of the sun.
So unless I’m wrong people equate teak decks with luxury.
“There’s nothing unusual
about that,” you say, and if they are prepared to
“pay” for it, fine. I don’t believe that
anyone wishes to waste money or valuable world resources. I’m
sure that it is a simple
case of ignorance, call it what you will. No one will tell the truth
because it’s in no one’s
interests. The manufacturer can make his boat look
“Lux” with teak. Other manufacturers
follow and the teak deck becomes “the norm”.
Boatyards and shipwrights depend on
unwitting victims for their income. If you ask them to sand down your
decks, that’s exactly
what they’ll do. It annoys me that they cannot be more
honest. If a client asked me (as
they have) if I can sand their decks I explain where that will lead and
in most cases they
have taken my advice not to touch it. I realise that for a boatyard to
take my approach is
a recipe for bankruptcy and for myself I am not a rich man but I am
content. I care very
much about what happens to our world. I personally am glad I will not
be among the
future generations who must follow in our shoes. I can only do my bit,
I can’t change the
world, I can’t change fashion but I hope I can slow down the
damage by telling the truth.
So now you know, what will you decide for the decks on your new boat?
