4-P.A.C.K. Forum/Weblog

Teak Deck Removal, Santa Rosalia

Pictures HERE

Teak decks are beautiful, and they have excellent adhesion when wet. You see them on most classic yachts. They are the standard for elegance and style. They also may have several hundred screws holding them down, usually into plywood. When the thin bed of adhesive starts to fail due to age and flexing, water will invade under the teak, searching for a way into the underlying structure. With all those screw holes, deck fittings, and hardware fastened through the teak, it’s no wonder leaks develop. This can do damage that can be extremely expensive and involved to repair or can cause structural damage that can compromise the integrity of the vessel. On older boats especially, your options are to spend lots of time and resources trying to maintain the decks or to do away with them completely.

Given the age and condition of our decks on 4-P.A.C.K., our decision was simple: Do away with them. The trick is that without the teak decks in place, the surface must now be replaced with something that will maintain a standard of traction that will hold you from slipping when the decks are pitching and wet. I started researching the different products available for boat decks that provided the type of traction that we would require.

A note about the abrasive qualities for anti-skid decks: It is a fairly simple task to apply a surface that would keep you from slipping. If you have ever been on a fishing trip on one of those excursion boats that go out of your favorite marina, you’ll notice the decks are something like a 36-grit sanding pad. Works great! Now think about an 8-year-old playing tag, running down that deck, and falling. The skid mark would be made up of mostly skin, followed by some good flesh and maybe, if he was “it,” some bone. Get the idea? Sometimes too much is too much. That is not to say that teak decks would not skin the knee.

There is a nice raised rubber diamond plate pattern sheet that is sold and can be applied using an adhesive which is reported to work fairly well. We were concerned that in years of extreme temperature changes and direct sunlight, they would not hold up, and I just didn’t like the look. There were also some pour-on products available, but I failed to find anyone using such a product on their boat and also considered this a quick-fix type of product.

What we needed was good traction when wet, something that would stand up to the environment, could be simply maintained or touched-up, and would be accepting of spills of various materials that take place on deck, and not require reconstructive surgery if fallen upon – oh, and look good also. I narrowed my search to using the overall standard of single or two-part paint with a texture material added. The question I had now was would I use paint with the traction material already mixed in or sprinkle the anti-skid material over the painted surface while still wet? I went shopping. I returned with three things: pre-mixed anti-skid deck paint, one-part polyurethane paint with micro-plastic spears (an anti-skid substance), and a controlled-size pumice material to mix into or sprinkle upon.

While we were staying at the home of Richard and Rachel, Andrea’s life-long sailing cousins in San Pedro, Richard and I made several practice panels of different combinations of products in an effort to find the combination that we felt gave us the right texture for the new decks. We also needed to know how much product was needed for the job. This sounds simple, but remember that we have a 45-foot boat with 135 square feet of really screwed-up teak deck that has to be removed. The underlying material has to be prepared to accept epoxy for that nice new surface. Once the teak decks are off, how about those thousands of holes? They have to be filled and faired. You better epoxy down some cloth before you prep the surface with five coats of epoxy or cracks may develop. There is also the ever-present danger that some of the sub-deck will have to be removed because the water that has found its way into those screw holes may have caused damage that will have to be removed and repaired.

Richard and I made one-square-foot panels using various combinations. After six sample panels, the ease of touch-ups convinced me to use a single-part polyurethane paint, as opposed to the more resilient two-part, with controlled-size pumice as an anti-skid material to be sprinkled on when the paint was wet. I chose Hatteras white as a contrast to the bright white on the cabin sides and cap rail. It was simple, durable, easily available in the US, could be touched-up, and could be made to be abrasive enough to be suitable when wet and hungry only for the first layers of skin when fallen upon.

Once we had made our decision, Richard and I carefully measured the epoxy, paint, and texture we would need. You see, I had to carry all necessary supplies down 650 miles into Mexico where the boat was, and sometimes Customs can make life difficult when they think that the resources being brought over the border could be for re-sale. I didn’t want to schlep down more than I needed, and I had no reason to believe I could find any of the supplies I needed in Mexico. We estimated the amount of product needed for the square-footage of the deck and then went shopping. I spent a little over a thousand dollars. We rented a mini-van for the trip back down to Santa Rosalia, packed it from floor to ceiling with food, supplies for the deck, stuff for other boats, stuff for our boat, and – oh, yeah! – the two boys. The four of us took off for the 14-hour trip back to the boat. Some of the supplies were for dear friends on the boat “Momo” in the anchorage where our boat was.

Upon our arrival, the “Momo” family promptly came over bearing a child-made “welcome home” poster, took control of our galley, and made us a beautiful dinner of fresh fish with all the trimmings.

The following morning it was time to work. Bernie from “Momo” came over and helped me with the removal of the first section of teak deck. This was the first time I had taken any substantial area of teak off the boat. Most of it came off relatively easily. The one unexpected thing we discovered underneath was slightly raised pathways topped with cross-hatched texture. Along the sides of the texture were smooth borders, to which the teak deck had adhered absolutely perfectly, requiring it to be chiseled off in splinters. Due to the elevation of the cross-hatched texture, the borders would also require more filling and fairing than I had expected to make the end result level. The base area looked as through it would accept the cloth and epoxy layers without difficulty.

With the exploratory removal completed, I drove back to the States to return the rental car. It turned out I had done my homework well and had no need of additional supplies. I returned to the boat via Mexican bus with iPod in ear, eager to start what we estimated to be a three-week, 10-hour-a-day effort. It was exactly that. This was a very big job in which all of us were involved. Without the combined effort of all four of us, a job like this for anyone considering it would have taken one person, in our estimate, at least two months working every day.

Trying to remove the screws before pulling up the boards did not work. Most of the screws broke. Mostly the boards came right up, pulling right over the screws. Then the boys used Andrea’s grandpa’s horse-shoeing tool as a large nail puller and simply levered the screws straight out. **Those that wouldn’t budge or were broken off too short, I unscrewed the remaining shaft using vise grips.

I mentioned those bordering boards that were really stuck down. I cut through the boards on either side of each screw using a Fien Tool with a square plunge blade, then simply pried up the smaller piece of deck between the screws and removed the screw using the nail puller. If you are unfamiliar with the Fien Tool, get familiar with it. I recommend it for your inventory of power tools. It is pricy, but in this job alone I think it saved me dozens of hours of difficult labor in the removal and finishing process. Without using this process of cutting the boards into small pieces between the screws, we would have literally splintered off the boards that were securely adhered.

Not knowing what I would find or how long this job would take, I decided to divide the deck into four sections when working. We didn’t start the next section until the last was well on its way to being completed and I was convinced that there were no surprises left in that section. The last section had the biggest surprise: a two-foot-square, half-inch-deep area on the back deck which had presumably been put into the mold for the option of a rear hatch. That was apparently filled with plywood prior to the laying of the teak deck – plywood that was now rotted and dripping. We cleaned and filled this void using a section of marine plywood that we had on board. We saturated the plywood with epoxy and faired it to the level of the surrounding deck using the filling material that we had brought.

After removing the decks, the screws, and scrubbing off the compacted dirt long trapped underneath, we injected epoxy into the screw holes. Some would accept several syringes-full; most others, little if any. Then those areas were sanded, filled, and faired. This turned out to take longer and used more fill than expected – another surprise: We used every bit of fill we brought down and would have used more if we had it.

Next it was time to lay down the first coat of epoxy with the cloth. I chose a product called Dynel, a polyester cloth with characteristics similar to fiberglass cloth without the irritation of fiberglass. It saturates well and cuts easily. We were now on our way. We had one section of deck ready. We soon had the other sections ready for finishing, and within a week I was well into applying the build-up coats of West Systems epoxy required for the new decks.

I used a roll-and-tip process in applying the epoxy. I rolled a medium amount on with the roller and then “tipped” it, or feathered out any bubbles or thin spots. Every morning I would wash the newly cured coat with a 3M pad, sand lightly, and apply another coat of epoxy. On some days, timing allowed me to apply two coats before a total cure took place. I read the West Systems information before using their product. They explain the technique for applying several coats of product, whether allowing it to cure or before curing.

Mind you, I was not doing this alone. I might be rolling on a coat of epoxy as Casey is mixing the two parts together in manageable amounts to be used before “going off” as they say, which is when the epoxy starts to cure or harden while still in the cup. Andrea is removing teak or screws, maybe sanding another section of deck. Patrick is making trips to the trash can, handing out new gloves, cutting sand paper, etc. This is home schooling at its best – team work dedicated to a common interest and a shared goal, real-time task management, and resource planning.

We applied a total of five coats of epoxy, tinting each one a little different shade in order to give us a visual indicator for total coverage. Then, after a thorough washing and sanding with 100-grit sandpaper, it was time to apply the one-part paint and sprinkle on the anti-skid. Now it was time to figure out any pattern we wanted on the deck, like smooth areas or another color around deck hatches, cabin sides, or cap rails. I masked off the areas I wanted to be without abrasive. With the tape in place, I brushed on a medium coat of paint within a small area that I felt I could manage, then sprinkled on the non-skid using a salt shaker. Go ahead and cover the area fully with the non-skid, don’t pile it on, but do cover the entire painted area. Follow the instructions for the time to wait between coats. Then first brush away any extra grit with a soft brush, then apply your second coat of paint only. You will have some grit escape into your brush, but don’t worry; it will just mix in with the paint. I put two coats of paint on. I have read that some people like to put on three coats. I think if I did, I would thin the paint just a little. After the paint dries, remove the tape on those areas you want to accent by keeping smooth, re-tape the borders of those areas, and apply the finish of your choice.

We elected to keep the same color as the surrounding cabin sides and cap rail, which is white. It has been about nine months since we completed the decks, and we are delighted with the results. At first I thought we used too light of a color on the decks because they showed dirty footprints and such, but they clean-up fast and are so much cooler in the sun that I wouldn’t change a thing. So think about it when you pick a color – the darker, the hotter!

It was the biggest family project we’ve done on the boat. We all remember those weeks as being immensely satisfying. Working together, being outdoors, our dock neighbors calling encouragement in English and Spanish – “Nice job!” or “Buen trabajo!” And Andrea says, “There’s nuthin like swingin’ a sledgehammer to make you feel alive.”