Sustainable Sailing

Okay, time to be controversial (and that is a sad thing because I don’t think this should be controversial at all).

I believe that NO yacht should have teak decks today. They are sold as a luxury upgrade, yet they are environmentally destructive, don’t last long as GRP decks, on older boats they cause leaks, in the tropics they get too hot to walk on and they raise the temperature in the cabin, they are heavy (just what you don’t want) and they take lots of maintenance.

We are so glad that Vida doesn’t have teak decks. To reinforce that view we have recently watched a couple of videos.

On Magic Carpet, Aladino (as a professional boat builder who has beautifully rebuilt Magic Carpet from an insurance write off) shows how to properly maintain a traditional teak deck. Note that each year he spends more time maintaining his beautiful deck than Vida has had deck maintenance in 42 years. Our grp decks are original and have never been painted, so all the repairs are visible (none) and so are all the faults (cracks around one chainstay, chain damage into the anchor locker, holes from some fittings we have removed).

Then on Follow The Boat you can see the waste and cost in time, labour, materials etc when a teak deck has not been properly maintained . The cost wasn’t just the new deck and toerail needed but a complete new interior refit due to water damage from the leaking deck. Here is a recent refit revist which includes having to remove the deck (with nothing that could be salvaged). Oh and remember that Esper is 12 years younger than Vida (also note that Vida has had preventative Osmosis coatings twice and shows no signs of Osmosis now).

For us use of Teak is a key environmental concern, even though much modern Teak comes from plantations, that is not always the case (and would not have been 40 years ago). But if it lasted as long as the expectations say maybe it would not be such an issue.

Teak is incredibly expensive and so a status symbol. Yet nowadays Teak decks are so thin that they are unlikely to last much more than a decade (although at least it is glued on and not screwed on, so not as likely to be a cause of leaks). That lifetime will be reduced if chemicals are used to maintain it’s colour, also if scrubbed with the grain and also if not washed weekly with salt water.

So Teak decks are an expensive status symbol that are environmentally destructive; require lots of maintenance work; make your boat too hot inside; provide a non slip surface that you can’t walk on in the tropics (because it is too hot); and which after 42 years we would have to replace if they had been fitted to Vida, if not this year then within a few.

In summary: Luxurious status symbols like teak decks are for people with far more money than sense.