Teak, teak and more teak!

Don't get me wrong, we love the look of beautiful, warm, freshly varnished teak. However, I spent the first 3 1/2 years of my professional boating career aboard a tall ship that was covered in teak, all of which needed varnishing. It was kind of like a bridge, once you get it all done, you go back to the beginning and start again.

We decided after we had varnished the same item several times over the years, that we would never own a boat endowed with lots of teak. And here we have ended up with one...best laid plans of mice and men I guess.

Whilst researching Marine Traders during the survey and pre-purchase process, I came across the Trawler Beach House blog. Chuck had posted about removing the hand rail and brow teak on Beach House, which seemed like a very sensible thing to do, not only to reduce the required varnish work, but more importantly to ensure there was no chance of water ingress.

So work has begun which is best shown with photos.

The teak is in pretty bad shape having been sanded so much over the last 30 years, so removal really is the best thing to do.

An unofficial name change

I am not a great fan of changing the name of a boat. I am not really all that superstitious about it, but having sailed around the world a couple of times, I have seen first hand what old Neptune can throw up at you, and don't really like to push my luck, even after performing the well documented name changing ceremony.

When we bought the boat she was called Nostra Signora Dei Turchie - Italian for 'Our lady of the Turks' A bit of a mouth full really and has no meaning to us.

So keeping in mind that we didn't want to change the name, we simply shortened it to 'Nostra Signora' or 'Our Lady', presented a suitable offering to Neptune, and away we went.

However at the same time, one or our friends who has the ability to look at a situation from a parallel universe, theorized that because the boat was built in Taiwan and that she is a trawler yacht, the only possible name for the boat was the 'Prawn Cracker'. This has since been shortened into just the 'Cracker'.

So unless we are announcing ourselves over the radio to a marina or some other such official requirement, to one and all she has affectionately become known as the 'Prawn Cracker' or 'Cracker' for short!

Teak Decking

I am a great fan of teak decks. Although as we all know, whilst they are ascetically beautiful, and nice under foot, they can cause major problems if not installed correctly or sufficiently maintained, especially on an older boat.
Luckily the "Cracker" (our nickname for the boat which requires a post of it's own to explain why) has had her decks replaced in the not to distant past. The info from the previous owner was that main decks are around 5 years old, and the upper decks are only a couple of years old.
Not owning the boat at the time, I can only guess at how the main decks were laid, but the construction is made up of 16mm ply with 8mm teak planks laid on top.
Thankfully there are only screws in the margin boards and no leaks in the actual boat, but there is a problem with the edge of they ply where it meets the scuppers. It seems that if the ply edge was sealed at all, the sealant has worn away leaving the bare edge ply open to the water from the scuppers, and has therefore started to rot.
My pre winter job list has consisted of making sure the boat is absolutely water tight before the rains begin, so this decking repair has suddenly risen to the top.

I am a great believer of the KIS method (keep is simple), so I simply sanded the edge of the decking along the scuppers and removed the worst of the rotten ply. Left it to dry over several sunny days to ensure there was no moisture trapped under the deck. Then after taping along the edge of the deck and about 1 cm from the deck in the scupper, using a spatula, I carefully filled the gap with SP Systems 2 part epoxy filler. To create a nice profile I went back along the filler with a half round rubber tool, thus both sealing the exposed ply and creating a nice profile.

Next was to sand the profile, which is a very labor intensive and boring job!

 Finally I will sand the bulwarks and prep for painting the lot with 2 part primer and 2 part Gloss top coat........but that is for another weekend and post!