BABA 35 Wooden Deck

[Brian24jersey]

I was looking at boat listings and on a old BABA 30 I noticed it had a wooden deck. My question is how hard is it to maintain a yacht with a wooden deck.

[CharlieCobra]

It depends. Most have wood in their decks, many sandwiched between glass. The usual issue with wood decks, any decks are where things like cleats, chainplates and other hardware are bolted or pass through. If not properly maintained, they leak. When that happens, the plywood, balsa or whatever soaks up water and turns to mush or rots. If teak over glass, it depends on how it was built. Some teak decked boats were not properly bedded and had screws driven down into the glass/wood sandwich, which later caused the above issues.

[Brian24jersey]

Originally Posted by CharlieCobra

It depends. Most have wood in their decks, many sandwiched between glass. The usual issue with wood decks, any decks are where things like cleats, chainplates and other hardware are bolted or pass through. If not properly maintained, they leak. When that happens, the plywood, balsa or whatever soaks up water and turns to mush or rots. If teak over glass, it depends on how it was built. Some teak decked boats were not properly bedded and had screws driven down into the glass/wood sandwich, which later caused the above issues.

Thank you sir,

I checked out your website the valient 40 you painted looks real pretty!

[CharlieCobra]

Thanks, it's appreciated....

[vessenes]

Charlie hit the high points, but you also have to think about Teak maintenance itself, even if it's bedded properly.

If it's left 'natural' or oiled, you're going to be scrubbing it down with oxalic acid periodically and then re-oiling if you like that look (I do!).

I haven't seen many varnished teak decks, but I'm no expert, so I'm sure that can happen as well.

All that to say, even if the fiberglass deck itself is in good shape, keeping a large teak deck in good shape is going to be a non-trivial amount of labor, in my limited experience.