Teak Work on Companionway

I've stumbled my way into a project that I wasn't going to do until after my return to Australia.

Beginning

A few weeks ago I discovered another source of water into the bilge.  I washed down the boat and by chance the floor board in the section between the quarter berths was not in position.  After the washdown I noticed about 3 cupfuls of water pooled along a stringer near the bilge.  Normally I wouldn't notice this since the water would run to the edge of the flooring then disappear.  To have this much water leak in after only a brief play of the hose over the companionway entrance meant that in a rough seaway serious amounts of water would be shipped over time.  By then the leak had settled to a drip, but that drip persisted for hours, telling me that water that had accumulated in and under the teak facing on the companionway step was working its way to that drain point.

Note how screws break and peel away

This morning I started to look at that teak with the intention of re-caulking the gaps between the boards in the hopes of stopping the percolation of water to the underlying fiberglass.  The more I looked the worse the situation appeared.  The teak boards were thin and brittle, most of them were loose, and the heads of many of the screws holding them down were missing due to corrosion. It was all too far gone for a patch up.  I started to gingerly probe the wood with a screw driver and soon I was fully committed to removing all of the teak.

Teak removed, exposing years of grime

My big worry - and what had been holding me back - was removal of the many screws that held the wood down.  I needn't have worried because the brass or bronze screws had degenerated to the point that they actually crumbled at the slightest force.  I found that many of the screws simply broke when I lifted up the wood.  In the end there remained a set of screws which I had sheared off at deck level with a screw driver, and the material was soft enough for me to drill a pilot hole with a 1/16" bit then follow that up with a full diameter drill.  After an hour of work all screws had been either removed or drilled out, leaving holes clean through the fiberglass.

In center is tiny pilot hole drilled through top of screw shaft

Then the cleanup started: years of grime and remnants of caulking which must be teased out of the rough anti skid surface.

Clean surface, but more cleaning to be done

I considered contacting Reggie for a quotation for replacing the teak but after discussions with Bob and later with Rick I agreed that the best solution is to fill in the holes with epoxy then paint the area, which was never intended to be lined with teak in the first place and has a rough non-skid surface.

PS The dental work went OK.  Three big roots, one after the other.