Well, it has been a busy week. The boat was moved inside on Tuesday, and all the teak was removed by Thursday! I am now currently cutting the outer skin on the deck and ripping out the core material…
The boat is currently at Cape Fear Boatworks, which is a great place at an even better price. They have a huge indoor building that has only a few boats inside, so I have plenty of space to work and no one to bother me while I do it. There is only one employee at the yard who is always busy running around and fiber-glassing his own projects. The owner of the yard lives on his boat there, but rarely seen and a super nice guy (and the local magistrate, so don’t get in trouble!).
I started by taking off all hardware on the deck. Tough task when a lot of hardware is through bolted and you can’t be in two placed at the same time. I ended up getting lucky and a lot of pieces had so much caulk on them that I could undo the nut on the underside without holding the top. Other’s I used vice-grips and unscrewed it from the top. Once all the hardware was removed the teak was next. I attempted to remove the plugs and unscrew it but it didn’t work out that easy and I ended up with more stripped screws than removed ones. So, a hammer and crowbar were my best friends for the next day and a half. One side was redone with epoxy and was a pain to get up and the other was put down with a rubberized adhesive and was easy to get up. Most of the teak came up easily but broke in many spots, I was not planning on reusing it so no big deal.
After all the teak was up, I peeled up a small section of the deck to check what the core looked like. Once I got it up I was slightly surprised to see that it was small 2″x2″ squares of plywood all completely soaked and rotten. Ok, this is going to be a big job. I had planned for the worst and this is it. No easy way out now.
So, on my hands and knees, I used a circular saw to cut a 3 foot square out of the deck, just cutting through the top layer and peeled it up. Then using a hammer and chisel, slowly, chipping out the old core material. I left a 2-3 inch edge around the cutout to feather it to connect to the new deck I am going to lay in. I am still working on getting the core material out. My goal is to have it all out by the 15th and them have a new skin on the deck by the end of the week. Time to start ordering supplies!
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