Teak Deck removal questions

ggrizzard · Jan 18, 2020

Assuming the teak is screwed to the deck, how much would someone charge to remove a thousand old screws? Don't forget to include time to drill out or wrestle out the broken headed screws (perhaps 30% of them). There are several You Tube Vloggers who have undertaken this chore.
"Learning the Lines" did two episodes on that very topic last year. "Sail Life" is another.
I think he did at least two episodes as well a year and a half ago.
Their work will give you a sense of how big the job would be doing it yourself.
Have Fun!

Sailm8 · Jan 18, 2020

These guys DIY'd it. Start here:

dlochner · Jan 18, 2020

Here's another article:

Replacing Teak Decks is a Monumental Job | Cruising World

There's a lot of work required to remove old teak deck and replace it with a new core and fiberglass.

www.cruisingworld.com

ggrizzard · Jan 18, 2020

Sailem*, that's a good video too. Sadly, the couple in it bagged the boat you see in the vid, then bought a smaller "fixer upper", didn't do any work on it and then flew to Japan...never to be heard from (on You Tube) again!

TomY · Jan 19, 2020

Phil said:
Yeah..it's a huge job that I would probably not undertake myself. I've been doing some digging. For a 30ft boat it appears that the typical price to have it professionally done is ~$30K.

You have done the research, Phil. 30K sounds like a solid figure to me, to apply to any potentials with aged teak veneer deck over a cored fiberglass deck.

It would be a laborious job and likely include re-coring and tons of very detailed work. You're building a new fiberglass deck essentially. If it turns out to be less of a task, that's a win for you.

With your budget, I'd keep looking.

Sailfanatic · Jan 20, 2020

This guy does an excellent job of documenting his teak deck replacement starting here

Of course the big secret in removing teak deck is the often need to replace the deck core next.

free cruiser · Jan 22, 2020

A teak deck is one of the biggest mistakes you can find on a cruising boat, an inevitable maintenance time bomb. Simple solution. Don't buy any boat with a teak deck.
a friend from the US east coast wanted to go cruising, and had always admired classic Rhodes designs. So he bought one, and headed for the West Indies.,working like a slave on the "Classic" woodwork in every anchorage along the way.When he got there, he was exhausted, and moved into a hotel room , for 3 days to recover. When he got back to the boat, the woodwork had deteriorated considerably already.
So he sold her, and made up his priorities list for his next boat. Looked like there were plenty for sale.
When he specified "no cores" the number decreased drastically .
When he specified "No bright work or wood on the outside of the boat" ,it decreased even more drastically.
When he specified , "No skegless, unsupported rudders " (no spade rudders, the one rudder design with the highest failure rate of any rudder design) the number decreased even further.
"Proper ,2 ft side decks" reduced it even further.
By the time he got thru his very reasonable and practical list of priorities, the number of available boats which fit the list was tiny.
$30K to get rid of a screwup sounds a lot more than the value of a 30 footer, anyway.
Buy a proper boat!
Problem solved!

jon hansen · Jan 22, 2020

love teak decks, i think they are the best! but that's just me

over 50 yeas old and doing fine

jon hansen · Jan 22, 2020

i grew up around wood boats and wood boat owners. if you are short handed to do maintenance and or it's not in your budget and are going to the tropics. just take outdoor house latex paint and put a coat right over the varnish. it will protect just fine. enjoy your adventure. varnish, paint, it's just to protect the wood. easy peezy. when you get to a milder climate strip the paint just down to the varnish. selling your boat because you are overwhelmed by maintenance because you don't understand the skills needed. bummer!

TomY · Jan 23, 2020

jon hansen said:
love teak decks, i think they are the best! but that's just me
View attachment 174324

over 50 yeas old and doing fine

That is a good run for teak decks, Jon. Does your Caravelle have solid glass decks like the Challengers? How is the decking fastened? How much re-caulking has it needed over the years? I suspect it may be thicker and fastened 'smarter' than some of the thin veneer decks that have failed on many newer glass hull/deck boats.

Teak decks like brightwork/wooden boats aren't going away anytime soon. They're all over the world in places with brutal sun exposure. Heck, Venice is full of gleaming varnish. As you say; you have to know how to do it yourself or hire people with the skills to care for them.

Speaking of Venice, I love this video from Spirit Yachts, decadent $$$$ day sailers for sure.

The producers of the movie Casino Royale approached Spirit Yachts to borrow a boat for their movie. Spirit Yachts said, "Sure, but it's going to cost some $$$ stepping a mast several times, moving, etc. to sail inside the Grand Canal".

The producers walked to look for a freebie. Everything else available was a white plastic boat. Hmmm,...

Would James Bond, a guy that drives a 60's Aston Martin, sail an all white boat? The producers came back to Spirit Yachts, and wrote a check.

Why is it that somebody always wants a boat like this one in the vid? Wood.

jon hansen · Jan 23, 2020

aeolus does not have a glass deck like christmas, Tom. the teak deck after all these years is still over 1 1/4" thick. just like a wood boat there is frame work/ a grid that supports the deck how ever those danes built the framing out of fiberglass. wow! old man molich was a master builder with a plan. between the framing is a glass membrane thats maybe 3/16 thick. it is not at all like a fiberglass deck. the frames give the support. now, the teak deck is fastened with marine bronze fine thread machine bolts with threaded hole in the glass. i maybe the only guy with a deck like this in the world. the seams on the top surface of the deck do not go all the way down. the black calk only goes into the wood maybe 1/4 inch. below that the boards are butted up to each other like the hull planks of a wood boat. aeolus has ribs, spaced just like a wood vessel throughout the hull, but made of glass as well. that's right an inch thick, solid glass hull with ribs to boot. can you say 'ice breaker'. then the liners are attached to the ribs and framing. this creates great ventilation for the bilges. the sun will warm one side of aeolus and the shady side will cool every day the bilges get aired out. how cool is that. so, you ask about the black caulking on this old deck. what i was taught back in the day is you take a file. you bend over the tip. you carefully gouge out the old black teak deck calk. careful not to widen the seam. and then recaulk. not that big of job if your a wood boat guy. way easier than recanvas wood decks back in the day. i helped dad do that on the US one.
the deck, just like a wood hull, needs to soak up to seal up when first pulled out of the barn in the spring. the rest of the season that deck stays tight. amazing, right.

aeolus has a real teak and holly floor in the cabin. not a plywood laminate copy.

so to really understand what this vessel is about, you have to understand wood. the trim teak that you can buy today is not at all like the old growth wood from the virgin forests the molich bought back then. the grains are super tight. these trees grew very slowly. this old growth teak is like iron. they decked battleships with this stuff for a reason. you can no longer buy wood like this. it is gone. just like the old growth mahogany, is gone for ever, that what aeolus's interior was made of. you might go to a lumber store and be sold wood that they call mahogany, or they call teak, it will not be like the wood used by molich to build this vessel. i am extremely strict about anyone touching or working on the wood of aeolus. you drill an unwanted hole in my wood and i'll drill an unwanted hole in your skull to make you wonder before you might do it again. you hurt my boat and i will hurt you. the old timers at the yard know me. they like me. they know i expect only the best. and they give it to me. those old PJ craftsmen are highly skilled. some of them have been helping care for aeolus since 1980. they then watch me throw up the sails just off the dock down town and sail the snot out of that boat all season long.
i love strong boats
i love deep heavy keels
i like playing in all breezes
we cast off the dock in 35 kt + winds many times this summer to go play out on the bay. it was a breezy season.
i do love alden sail boats

TomY · Jan 24, 2020

Wow, you have a real teak deck, Jon. I was thinking you might when you mentioned the condition. That makes total sense and for Molich, that was just the industry standard at the time. Your deck may well last another 50 years before it needs replacement.

This is a section, just removed, of the real teak decking on the schooner BRILLIANT several years ago. She saw 10 times the use our boats will ever see sailing year round all over the world with daily foot traffic of a big crew. At this point, these decks were 75 years old. The decks have finally worn down enough that the wood plugs are loosing their holding depth and the caulking recess is getting a little shallow.

Like much that is 'new and improved', this ancient method outlast many of today's teak veneer decks, 3 or 4 to 1. BRILLIANT below with her new teak decks the following spring.

They use other woods today for decking. This old sardine carrier was rebuilt including new decks and launched this season in our harbor. She has pine decks. The owner and master builder was telling me the decks are 2 1/2" thick and pine was often used for ship decking on rough and tumble work boats in the past.

The pine he used is not what we think of when we reach for a piece at the lumber yard. It was hard to find old growth that only a few boat builders can get a hold of. It'll last more than a century I'm sure.

Here's a new sustainable wood product grown in Wales that is being used to replace teak wood which is an endangered wood species today. This stock is harvested after only 22 years and goes through a treatment process that is guaranteed for 50 years. Not bad for the veneer decked boats but short lived compared to real ship decking.

LIGNIA Yacht | Alternative Decking to Burmese Teak | LIGNIA

Our wood delivers beauty, performance and a legal and sustainable product for your yacht. Proven to match, and in some categories to be superior to Burmese teak. Push the boat out with LIGNIA Yacht.

www.lignia.com

dLj · Jan 24, 2020

If I were to have to replace a real teak deck today, I would use either ipe or iroko. Preferribly iroko but you probably can't get iroko in North America that would be price competitive so it would likely be ipe. Both of these woods will Outlast teak, including the old growth teak that was originally used. Funny how teak ended up being the wood of choice way back when. Maybe they didn't know about these two...

dj

jon hansen · Jan 24, 2020

like sitka spruce for my booms, tradition.

jon hansen · Jan 24, 2020

i will be dead before aeolus wears out.

TomY · Jan 25, 2020

dLj said:
If I were to have to replace a real teak deck today, I would use either ipe or iroko. Preferribly iroko but you probably can't get iroko in North America that would be price competitive so it would likely be ipe. Both of these woods will Outlast teak, including the old growth teak that was originally used. Funny how teak ended up being the wood of choice way back when. Maybe they didn't know about these two...

dj

Here's a real deck built of Silver Bali, a teak substitute used on the schooner REBECCA. I wouldn't have a clue what it was had I not asked a boatbuilder involved with the boat.

When I built my cockpit a few years ago, I used Ipe for the veneer decking. It was 1/3 rd the cost of Teak. It seems to be holding up fine. We dropped an entire small bowl of olive oil on the sole. Jon's right, I suspect it will take 10 years to bleach out. Oh well, we love olive oil,...