teak deck removal revisited

[jeffatoms2]

Our 1998 38 Ocean has had terrible, decaying, end-of-life decks for the 7 years we have owned it.  Considering the boat has 26 years under the keel, it's no surprise that the teak on plywood laminated decks are done.  From other posts here on the topic, removal can be somewhat intimidating.  Allow me to share what we have been doing and will keep doing to eliminate the wood to recover the original nonskid.

First, a bit of background. We bought the boat with squishy decks.  Then we decided it would be fun to live aboard.  It was fun.   And with a 19 year old boat on a deferred maintenance program there were things more important for our peaceful enjoyment than ripping up ugly decks that didn't leak.

We added a Espar hydronic heater, a Torrid Explorer 18 gallon 2x2 water heater, a Lewmar windlass with cockpit controls, a set of new Doyle sails with a stack pack, replaced parts of the fully enclosed cockpit canvas, cushions and bedding and most of the navigation system (redundantly), went through a couple of RIBs and outboards and Magma grills, purchased 275 feet of new Acco chain and a 20 kg Rocna anchor, (love it!) and somehow dumped over $30,000US into the Volvo engine/saildrive.  Oh well, those were our project priorities.

Back to the low priority decking.  My wife Sue suggested we take the slow path to removal and let nature provide free assistance.  Her idea was to acknowledge that we were just not going to do it all in one season so why not learn from the areas that already failed and lifting up and encourage the same process: allow water to get under it and help to break the bonding seal.  Again, our deck was failing/separating from the underlying nonskid and we wanted to preserve and use as-is the underlying nonskid.  With a few hand tools we went around and lifted the edges around areas that were squishy and already separated and allowed the wet season in Seattle to leak in and do the rest. 

It has been slow but steady work.  In two years more than 3/4 of the decking has released or is easily coerced up with a few well placed wedges, a pry bar (aka Slim Jim or Wonder Bar), a claw hammer and a DeWalt 20V multitool: not much.  In fact, the areas we opened to water last fall are coming right up today with little effort and clean but off colored nonskid under.  We know from previous experience that the nonskid, if left to the elements of sun, rain, freeze, repeat, will self-clean to mostly clean white.

We have a theory.  The Bavaria teak decks are a seven layer sandwich of teak, adhesive, three layers of plywood veneer and glue, followed by black polysulfide.  Our goal was to get down below layer 2 thru six to that water could get down lower yet, causing dry rot, and other natural magic to occur.  The real magic was found in having patience.  Today I spent 3 hours and effectively removed 80% of the teak and 60% of the black polysulfide lifted with the teak, revealing intact nonskid, albeit a little dirty.  Next week I'll come back with a belt sander loaded with a 40 grit belt and knock the remaining three ply plywood down, using the opposing grain bias of the veneer as a depth guide to the the last sheet of veneer and then let the wet, damp, winter of the Seattle winter take over.

No chemicals.  No heat gun.  No problem so far, just patience.

P.S. my photos are great but I'm having issues getting the resolution low enough to post.

Stay tuned.

[Ailatan]

Thanks for sharing your experience.
Photos will be great!

[JEN-et-ROSS]

About 16 years ago we bought our Bavaria Lagoon 38 (1990) with the same deck issues...
The surveyors report stated that "A teak deck should be a thing of beauty.... This is not..!!
We decided it had to go, so in a space of about 2 months we stripped it all off..
It had to be the most physically miserable experience of my life, we had the additional problem that the 'teak' was not only bonded to the GRP beneath, but had S/S screws about every 6" in all directions...
These screws had suffered badly from crevice corrosion, so every second one sheared off leaving the rusty threaded bit embedded in the GRP...
Once the 'teak' was removed we had to have a GRP specialist company lay a textured epoxy layer on top to seal all the broken screws in underneath....
It seems to have worked as the deck is still solid after the 16 years.. And it looks fine without the 'teak'..
I'm glad you didn't have the screws to deal with.....Bill.

[jeffatoms2]

OK, let's see if this worked - maybe a bit pixely but hopefully it shows the technique and progress.  I took a couple pictures of the deck coming up in fairly large sheets due to the prep of letting it soak for a year with intended water intrusion.  Note the pictures of the decking flipped over with most of the black adhesive intact. The nonskid is visibly in great shape; the dark stuff was just exposed by removing the decking above it, the white nonskid had the decking over it removed last spring and allowed to sit in the sun and rain for 6+ months.

[Yngmar]

Nice, ours did not come off in such big pieces, so "rotting" them first seems to have worked 👍

[jeffatoms2]

One week later, the weather has been helpful.  Lots of both sun and rain this past week so I went down to the boatto see how the edges were doing.  20 minutes layer I had another bag of removed decking to take to the garbage and the areas pulled up last week were beginning to turn white, as hoped.

[jeffatoms2]

9/1/25 update on deck removal and replacement project.  Time has been our greatest ally.  Patience has paid off and given about three years of gentle urging, waiting, rotting, cleaning, the original factory deck on our 1998 Bavaria 38 Ocean is essentially gone... Except for the three teak hatch covers and some tenacious glue around the edges.  I think we will keep the hatches teak decking as it is still good.

Next up? Potentially templating the deck for some industrial airplane hanger coin top flooring.

Photos available, just feeling like a buddies unable to find insert

[MagicalArmchair]

Yes please, send photos. It's one job I'm dreading, but I hope it's ten years off.

Quick reply doesn't let you add photos for some reason. Press reply and then you can add photos just fine.

I'll have an ask around at SMF to see if images can be added to the quick reply bit.

[jeffatoms2]

Thank you!  Still a bit rough, but as you can see the non-skid tread is in great shape, for the most part.  Lots of projects since the group went dark that I'd like to share. The boat is 27 years old now and never better!  Its truly a wonderful yacht.

[MagicalArmchair]

Looks good. I'm a bit worried with mine that where I have raked the seams and recaulked them that it will have damaged the non slip tread under. I'd be reapplying some kind of synthetic teak anyway when that exciting mission becomes a requirement. All the more reason to maintain what I have well to stave off that day.

I look forward to seeing the other projects you have completed. They are fabulous boats, made with some real passion. We felt safe as houses crashing across the Channel this year.

[jeffatoms2]

I used the term "completed" loosely.

They include:
New Balmar 120 amp alternator/regulator, etc
Added a dedicated brand new 200ah AGM at the windlass with
Auto-switching and combining of the three battery banks
New Raymarine helm station instruments (new to us and unused old demo equipment) and waterline stern shhot thru the hull depth transducer (no holes req'd)
Collapsible (stored under vee berth mattress) side boarding ladder.
Watermaker under vee berth in unused bow thruster area.
New Isenglass on dodger

90% was free-cycle and/or trade but mostly new, unused stuff.  Free is good 👍

The boat is pretty dreamy.