Teak Deck Sealing

[Sootydog]

Hi,  If i were to seal the edges of my teak decking (circa 2005) and trap moisture under the decking, will it "breathe" and eventually dry out?

Or can I / should I wait until next season and dry it out in the sun.  The boat is kept in the med.

Some of the caulking is lifting in one spot (about 6 inches) and I've noticed a lot of black "dust" on the deck recently so I assume the caulking is degrading. I'm happy to continue patching the caulking but is this a reasonable solution?


                         Thanks.

[sailprincess]

We are planning to spot-repair our teak deck caulking too. I'm interested to see what kind of feedback you get We're a 2002 and lots of black dust and even chunks of caulking coming out in places

[Yngmar]

Don't lock in moisture, it will rot the ply backing under the teak and then it will lift up more. Mine lifted in a corner of the cockpit seating. I dried it out during winter (easy with cockpit tent on) and then scraped out the rotted ply and stuck the lifting teak back down with adhesive sealant. Don't use epoxy - you will eventually have to remove the teak anyways and will hate yourself if you did use epoxy.

For recaulking, use proper deck caulking, such as Sabacaulk or TDS. I've used TDS SIS-440 (because it requires no primer).

On my boat it seems Bavaria used deck caulking for the seams, but some other black adhesive sealant for the edges. While the seams are fine, the edge sealant is UV damaged and is leaving black smears everywhere and I'm slowly replacing it, which is a shit job.

For minor seam repairs I've used a sharpened screwdriver of exactly seam width and disposable nailfiles.

[Odysseus]

I have the same issues as you, just the end of the sealent goes soft and messy gets every place and not easy to clean off cloths, I use white spirit that seems to work.

Why just the ends? There must be a chemist out there to advise us!!!

My fix to date is to put strips of paper tape on the offending bit untill there is enough to blitz economically as the sealent will go off in tube when opened.

Photo attached shows my bit of tape. It works for me, but will always take advice.

Hope this helps

Odysseus
Bav 38

[Moodymike]

I also have suffered with messy edges, have had great success with C.T.1.  Much better than Sikaflex as it is still usable from the tube several months later. Obtained a box of sealant funnels of eBay to save hassle of clearing old ones.

[ANTREVELL]

What is CTI ?   I want to bed my genoa track do you think thos CTI is right for the job.

Regards Tony Revell

[Moodymike]

Lots of information on google   available in white also

http://www.marinescene.co.uk/product/4919/c.t.1-clear-underwater-marine-sealant/?gclid=CjwKCAjw4KvPBRBeEiwAIqCB-V6RYG5ji2HJXvTMGyDUHe-0s93eGqeSxW_o_VWp4XysXc7SNOxMFBoCWdIQAvD_BwE


https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&q=ct+1+sealant&oq=CT+1&gs_l=psy-ab.1.5.0l10.2978.7369.0.12038.5.4.0.0.0.0.79.274.4.4.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.4.273.0..35i39k1j0i67k1j0i131k1j0i20i263k1j0i46i67k1j46i67k1.0.Wc6z1VAsja0

[Spirit of Mary]

My BAV 38 year 2003 showed bad caulking in the teak after 5 years. I have also a teak deck. Some spots of the caulking were smearing and some  spots lost elasticity and were dry. The boat has been in south Spain all the time from 2003. In 2013 I removed all the seams with a special Fein tool and refilled the seams with TDS caulking. Total hours 2 weeks with 2 persons incl weekend.
By the way Bavaria changed the backing of the teak from ply to polymer in 2002. So after that time there is no risk for ply rotting due to water ingress.

Ger