what should I do with my worn out "She-deck" ?

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homa

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what should I do with my worn out \"She-deck\" ?

I bought a She 33 at the end of last year and the patented "She-deck" is very worn in places and I plan to replace it at some time in the future.

I've been told by a couple of sources that "She-deck" ( I have no idea if the spelling is correct) is a patented type of deck covering made by South Hants marine in the late 70's and put on their boats at that time.
It is basically a very thin wood (?) veneer glassed onto the deck with black non-slip granules between to give the overall impression of a teak lookalike deck. The clever part is that the non-slip is achieved by the thin black lines of granular material between the strips of veneer.
The decks have not lost their non-slip properties. However the veneer is very worn in places showing the substrate below. Cosmetically it doesn't look nice, but I can live with it for a season or two. My question is has anyone else experienced this type of deck and what did you do to refurb or replace ?
NB The survey did mention high moisture levels in the veneer.
I'm thinking the simplest thing might be to remove all the remaining veneer and just paint the decks with non-slip paint.
Though should I epoxy the deck first ?
Thanks for reading this.
Homa
 
Re: what should I do with my worn out \"She-deck\" ?

I'm afraid I can't comment of replacing with the original material but I can on one or two of the more generic replacements. Certainly the paint option, which is what I use, is the easiest and cheapest, although it is not zero maintenance (but then nothing is). I recently scraped off 40 years of paint plus degraded gelcoat, and it now looks fine. If you go down that road then scrape the lot off with a two-handed scraper, fill any gouges or hollows with epoxy and microballoons (mixed to a peanut butter consistency); sand and paint. Allow at least 10 man-weekends to do a 30' boat by hand (I did it over 3 seasons) unless you're a professional weightlifter or similar. I would also recommend painting the white bits in between the non-slip bits before applying the latter, as you can't successfully lay masking tape on top of non-slip paint.

Another alternative is teak "decking" glued to the grp deck. This is close to what you have had and there are several suppliers, AFAIK. I believe that a Mr Twister_ken might be able to advise you in this area, but there have been a few threads on the subject in the last year. The search engine on here is crap, but you can use google to find them.

The third option is plastic. Treadmaster and Tek-dek are two names I know but, with apologies to those who love their treadmaster'd boats, I think it is the ugliest material in the world, somewhere between a pub carpet a groundforce decking project in aesthetic quality. But don't let me stop you...
 
Re: what should I do with my worn out \"She-deck\" ?

My first choice would have to be non-slip paint. I've had it on previous boats and it's very easy to maintain with a simple touch up maybe once during the season. & of course it's very cheap compared to any other option.
However, I would be interested in how to get the old deck off and to hear of recommendations of what needs to be done prior to painting.
Cheers
Homa
 
Re: what should I do with my worn out \"She-deck\" ?

If the existing surface is secure and not lifting why not try painting a small area with the non slip paint, if it stays on and looks good do the whole deck. Suggest you abrade the area before painting, the ridges on non slip deck should take the paint ok. I suspect the SHE-DEK is a plastic product similar to grp.
 
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