Plasteak - any good and where?

[Courageous]

Just wondering - sorry to hog the forum, but if I don't lose the benny and I do go down the route of tarting it up a bit I really wouldn't mind some form of imitation teak decking. Any of you chaps and chappesses had any experience with retrofitting this to your production fibreglass boat at all? If so how durable did you find it and who did ya get to fit it? Was it costly? If you have any idea who in spain might be qualified to fit it that would also be useful to me.......

 

[gianenrico]

Last spring I helped a friend in renewing a 6 mt alu sport boat.
We evaluated adding a wood topside in the walkways over the refurbished aluminum plates.
Our conclusion was:
1 - Teak costly but readily available as raw material or as a "ready to glue" panels of planks; not worth for the couple of square meters involved;
2 - Flexiteak interesting but VERY MESSY job that needs a pro to do it (e.g.: a plank of teak has some lateral rigidity if a foot pushes sideways, this requires perfect application for the rubber strips),
3 - solution adopted: strips of mahogany epoxied to the alu surface, epoxied on the surface and painted with 6 coats of 2 components varnish. (This of course is not viable for the topside of a sailboat).

The boat looks just as a 1955 Top Class American runabout right out of the factory (of course we also painted all the boat, remade the wiring and refreshed the cushions).

In Your case IMHO if the boat does not have from the factory the teak, better spend the money on a Full Battened main (if the sailmaker finds cart compatible with Your mast) and, may be, a holding tank if not fitted) and/or a bimini and sprayhood.
Cheers,
Gianenrico

 

[saltydave]

Don't know about the false stuff but have had an excellent job done on my boat with real teak.
My boat is on the Costa Brava and can recommend 200%
Fusteria Nautica
Avda. Monserrat 20,
17480 Roses
(near Gerona).
email ramongirbau@yahoo.es
Say that he was recommended by the Englishman whose boat he worked on last year in Port Moxo.

 

[Courageous]

Hi Dave - I've dismissed the real thing largely based on cost.... Looks like i can get a flexiteek job done for around the €2500 mark. Would that stand up any where near what you were charged? My boat's a benny 351 10.5m

Cheers