Fish blood on teak

[cmedsailor]

I am very reluctant to instal my fishing rod holders on my new boat because the cockpit is full of teak wood everywhere. Will the teak wood absorb the blood? Can it be easily cleaned? Thanks.

 

[maby]

It probably will stain. There are strong teak cleaners that will probably get it out, but you would not want to apply them too often. We treat our teak with Semco - which is a sealant rather than a varnish. The makers do claim that it will stop fish blood staining the teak - but we have never tested this, so don't blame me if it doesn't!

 

[Little Dorrit]

Teak is pretty resilient. I have had various stains (including fish blood) which have all disappeared after time. The secret is to not worry about it; constant cleaning and worrying is counter productive.

 

[johnalison]

It will wash out in a short time. We had a chap spill nearly a whole bottle of red wine in our cockpit when it was new and it had disappeared within a few weeks or less.

Blood consists of a liquid plasma with the red stuff confined to cells floating therein. Blood therefore does not stain so long as the cells don't split up, or haemolyse. Fresh water will break up the cells by osmosis and cause staining, so the trick with blood staining is to use salt water, or seawater, to rinse it out. The same advice works for clothes and carpets.

 

[RJJ]

Above all don't use hot water on fresh blood. Cold fresh water and oodles of it.

Kill the fish by holding head down in a tub of cheap vodka, more humane and I reckon keeps blood to a minimum. Then drink the vodka if you're really uncivilised.

 

[duncan99210]

We just poured cheap gin onto the gills..... works well (fish stopped threshing about, made it easy to cut the head off) but didn’t seem to cut down on the blood.

 

[ashtead]

When catching tuna on trailed lines bolted to rail each side when we’re lucky enough to catch vodka was preferred method and put down some form of canvas or tarp before gutting etc. It does wash off the stern deck with deck pump using salt water or of course invest in Flexiteak or such like which doesn’t mark in same fashion. Happy fishing though as if you are lucky enough to catch something worth the hassle of clean up.

 

[Sandy]

I am very reluctant to instal my fishing rod holders on my new boat because the cockpit is full of teak wood everywhere. Will the teak wood absorb the blood? Can it be easily cleaned? Thanks.

Do you not have a plastic tarp onboard?