Your Marine Products Pro Shop Analysts Give Your Boat Much Desired Protective Care
Raritan Engineering Company would love to share with you this week some amazing information that we have regarding how to help give your teak deck the needed TLC it deserves.
It was about a day after clawing my way through the sea of tourists descending from Norway’s most photographed spot, the precipitous ledge known as Priekestolen, it was a relief to find myself far from land aboard a well-found Scandinavian yacht with a sensible Norwegian skipper at the helm.
The boat that I saw was a lovely Hallberg-Rassy 352 based out of Stavanger, Norway, the gateway to the country’s golden-egg-laying goose, the North Sea oil fields. The marina we sailed out of was once the construction site for the impressive Condeep gravity based structures for oil platforms, but the only evidence of this mammoth operation was a tower-top restaurant overlooking the modern marina and housing development.
The skipper looked just as I expected a Norwegian skipper to look, complete with ruddy cheeks and a white beard. His name, of course, was Olaf. A police officer just months away from retirement, Olaf told me he had left the boat for a complete refit in Sweden for a year while he was in Liberia on a UN Peace Mission.
In a recent blog post just a few weeks ago, I wrote about the common costly mistakes that new owners often make when refitting their sailboats. Olaf, who had competed in several ocean races to Scotland and had owned the boat for 10 years, knew better.
Sails, rigging, chain plates all had to be replaced as needed, but the most expensive project was a complete replacement of the teak decks.
The results that I saw on that day were nothing short of stunning. From the immaculate scarfs on the cap rail to the elegant HR logo on the anchor locker, the new deck looked as nice as I’ve seen on any fresh-from-the-factory boat.
Your Marine Products Pro Shop Experts Say That Teak Decks Don’t Have to Be Deal Breakers
Your marine products pro shop specialists understand that old teak decks can be a deal breaker for the used boat buyer. Unless the previous owner(s) have taken a white-glove approach to deck maintenance, about 30 years of use is all you can hope for in a modern, 12-millimeter-thick teak deck.
While chandleries are stocked with a range of teak deck cleaners and sealers, the prevailing practice in Norway, explained Olaf, is to do nothing with the deck. A daily rinse with fresh water—no heavy scrubbing—no coatings, no dressing is the only treatment required.
Subscribers who want to check out some of our other teak-deck related tests will be interested in our teak cleaner test and our teak caulk test.
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