Getting teaked in Thailand

Practical: Maintenance

The lure of cheap labour means that more and more cruisers are having maintenance and repairs done when cruising in SE Asia. But – as Fenton Hamlin points out – there are some traps for the unwary, as there are anywhere.

There is nothing like it: a beautiful, new, golden-brown teak deck! Maybe it is a sprung deck with the perfectly spaced lines of polyurethane or pitch, reflecting the flowing lines of your elegant hull. Maybe it is straight-run planking reminiscent of the working boats of yesteryear. Sadly, whichever one it is, it is unlikely to last forever.

In high-traffic areas on the deck of a liveaboard yacht, teak – even quarter-sawn – can wear at the rate of one millimetre a year. Scary, especially if – as is often the case – your teak is simply a 6-8mm-thick veneer laid over plywood, steel or fibreglass. If it is held down with mechanical fastenings (screws), there will be bungs glued over the screw heads, which might be only a few millimetres thick. Those beautiful black seams might also be just a few millimetres deep.

Teak is not a hardwood. Its high natural oil content is its great virtue, and it does provide an excellent work surface on your deck, giving great grip – vital in bad conditions – and, of course, it looks fantastic.

Options
So, what do you do when those bungs wear away and water starts to find its way down the screws and into the sub-deck? Water, particularly fresh water, is bad news when it gets down there. Rust, rot, sponginess – we all know they signal big expense. However, it is job that must be faced up to eventually. For some owners, carefully removing the worn teak and reverting to a textured fibreglass deck is the solution.

For many, removing the old, worn teak and having it replaced with new timber is the preferred choice. It will certainly enhance the appearance of your boat and help maintain its value. Providing it has been a well executed job, it will keep the water out and last for many more years. Where do you go to have the work done? Wherever you go, good quality teak is expensive, so make sure whoever is laying it knows his job.

Thailand
For many cruising yachts, Thailand provides a logical answer. Good teak is difficult and expensive to source even here, but the labour costs are low. The problem is finding workers with the skills required. We’re not just talking about the skills involved in accurately cutting and fitting the timber, but skills involved in the correct use of modern materials such as Sikaflex.

The finest quality quarter-sawn teak, perfectly fitted, can be completely wasted if the techniques employed in laying it are not first-class. Your deck-laying team may have learned those skills but many have not. Many foreign boat-builders come from a fishing boat background and are not conversant with the more demanding standards sought by yacht owners. They may be skilled woodworkers, but their knowledge of marine matters and modern maritime technology might not be up to scratch.

Then there is the issue of communication. In SE Asia very few wood-workers or boat-builders can speak English, and somehow your instructions have to be made crystal-clear, or you could well be disappointed. An understanding of the local culture is an equally important aspect. The Thais are very proud people and like most Asian people, losing face is something to avoid at all costs. So, what do you do when you see something happening which you believe to be wrong?

Problems
We’re not just talking about the skills involved in accurately cutting and fitting the timber, but skills involving the correct use of modern materials such as Sikaflex. Maybe their techniques in using the caulking gun are inadequate. Air might be being trapped under the teak. Weighting down the teak on the Sikaflex or glue can be inadequate, again resulting in air being trapped. The situation must be handled with kid gloves or your team will become un-cooperative, or worse!

Sadly, I recently witnessed a situation here in Thailand where all the above problems were occurring.

Do your homework
Fortunately, there are people who do have the necessary skills and experience. There have been some very well executed jobs. Seek them out. Try and find boat owners who have had the same work done a year or two back and check to see if they are happy. Is the deck still watertight? Just remember that a worker armed with a heavy-duty belt-sander (grinding off your expensive teak) can make almost any new deck look fantastic in just a few hours. The really important facts lie hidden below the surface. Be vigilant, monitor progress and remember that trapped air pockets will expand in the hot tropical sun, then, cool again, sucking in any water that is on deck, and that is plenty in the wet monsoon months. In particular, watch for:

• Inadequate fairing of the sub-deck prior to laying the teak. Sometimes hidden by the decking team squeezing an extra thick bed of Sika to “fill” the gap.
• Inadequate seam preparation where the tape in the bottom of the seam can hide poorly fitted timbers with significant air voids between the strakes.
• Workers “pulling” the caulking gun when paying the seams, frequently trapping air, rather than “pushing” it.
• Blatant over-filling of the seams in the misguided view that this will result in a better job – very wasteful of an expensive product like Sikaflex.

So, yes you can have a very good teak deck laid here in Thailand but be aware of the potential problems. And yes, those problems can happen anywhere. If you cannot speak the local language, it will be money very well spent if you can find and employ a “project manager” who can. Remember that old saying: “Putty and paint make it seem what it ain’t”! Very true. Same goes for Sikaflex and belt-sanders.