remove or repair? TEAK DECKS

[jakevr]

sence the day i bought the boat i have been going back and forth and back and forth on weather i should rip up the teck decks and fiberglass and non skid paint or try to sand, replace bungs and screws and then recaulk the decks. has anyone on here removed their decks? give your input!

[Boatmon]

Ours still has her teak decks, but they were literally black!! when we took delivery. A horrible combination of neglect, incorrect prep, cheap varnish, and linseed oil. We used a commercial 7" ordital floor edger, with 20grit to cut through all the sins and get into good wood. From there we will sand down to 100 grit, and touch-up the caulking and bungs. They will stay that way for this next year, being scrubbed every week with bleach water. We will make a decsion on the finish next fall, when we will resand with 100 grit, and apply the finish.

We are stripping every inch of exterior teak this winter, as well as removing every stanchion and polishing with a wire wheel, to remove years of varnish and salt stains. A LOT of work!! but will be well worth the effort.

We much prefer the traditional look and feel to the teak decks, and removal would be our last choice. This pick was taken the first weekend we got her home, but after the first deck sanding. You can see the start of the work on the rails, every week we make more progress on the restoration.

my two cents worth,

[jleonard]

try to sand, replace bungs and screws and then recaulk the decks

Well if you do the above, that is not the correct order. You would want to re-caulk and replace the bungs then sand after that.

I re-caulked some of my decking this summer, and will do the rest in the spring. Was not really all that much work.
We prefer no finish on the teak decks. That is the best to keep it non skid. Part of our flybridge (under the enclosure) still has Cetol put on by the previous owner and even when dry is kind of slippery. Can't imagine how it would be wet.
And oil always makes tracks on the inside carpet , etc.
Natural finish decks are easy to care for. A little bleach water once in a while to remove the green...never use a brush unless absolutely necessary, then the softest you can find so as not to wear away the soft teak fibers. After clean douse it with salt water and let it dry.

[jakevr]

im going to remove the teak decks and fill, fair and paint non skid

[jleonard]

Make sure you add thickness for strength as the teak is part of the structure.

[jakevr]

i dont belive that the teak is structrual part of the vessel. the thinkness and construction and installation doesnt add up to be anything more than cosmetic.

[Vic T]

As you do the removal of the teak and lay down the new non-skid, it would be great if you could take a couple of pictures so others considering the same effort could see how you did it, your process and the outcome.

Thanks...Vic

[jakevr]

oh i will!

[jleonard]

[quote dont belive that the teak is structrual part of the vessel][/quote]

I disagree and here's why.
A boating friend that I talked to when I decided to look at a "Taiwan Trawler" told me lots about those boats. He was a boat dealer in the early 80s and did some extensive research about the boats. One reason for the research was he was thinking of buying one, but wanted it with fiberglass decks.
The builders told him that would add cost as they would have to add fiberglass thickness to make up for removing the teak as the teak was structural in supporting the horizontal load of the deck.
The cost was prohibitive to him at the time and he passed on buying.
He also told me a few things about the two yards that built the boats. It was only by luck that the boat I bought came from the "good" yard and not the "bad" yard quality wise.
Or so he told me, but that was also told tome by others as well, it's just that I trusted my friend to give me the truth as he never spread anything that he didn't know as factual.
You can take this as you wish.

[dmonteiro]

Which was the good yard and which was the bad yard

[jleonard]

The better yard was Koeshing ( I know I didn't spell that corectly) and that's where all the 40 ft and above were built at least the Albins. That was because of the wider beam...they couldn't transport the wider boats from the other yard. Or so that's what my friend had told me.
I forget the name of the other yard.
I don't know for sure that all of the 36 Albins were built at the other yard. Some may have been built at Koeshing. And the larger Marine Traders were built at the other yard as they have a narrower beam than the Albins.
HOWEVER the boats were built by crews. One crew would build the entire boat. Some crews were better than others. Hence the wide variation in quality in all of the Taiwan trawlers. Might be why for example, my decks are sound. The crew that built my boat were probably good at deckwork and sealing things up.
Some other crew may not have done as good a job. Etc for all the boat systems.

The bottom line is that at least now you know what you have in your boat as it has stood the test of time. Buying new with that known variation must have been a crapshoot and probably drove the dealers nuts chasing down problems.

[jakevr]

Thanks for the reply. How are your decks?? I know
your boat it used to me at the marina I'm at.

it came from the kah shing yard.

[jleonard]

your boat it used to me at the marina I'm at.

In Rochester?

My decks are sound to the best of my knowledge. I have one area that just started to leak, and I have started re-caulking as a preventive measure. The weather was so crappy last summer I could not finish. It gets easier and faster with practise and is not as bad as I had imagined from all the reading of other's work.

[jakevr]

Yes you bought it at voyager marina!

[jakevr]

changed my mind one LAST TIME, the teak decks are comming up, it is not a structeral part of the vessel. i will be starting in the next two weeks or so...