Now On Deck
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THERE’S SOMETHING NEW AND EXCITING UNDERFOOT ON MANY YACHTS
around the world: cork.
Most of us know cork for one of its most obvious and important
uses: keeping wine in the bottle and protecting its flavor. Cork is
everywhere around us, doing countless other valuable chores.
Known for its resiliency, cork has been used for insulation, engine
gaskets, life jackets, life rings, and household and office flooring. We
throw darts at it and use it for bulletin boards.
Considering the amazing number of uses for cork, it’s not surprising
now to find it underfoot on yachts, work vessels, and cruise
ships. Cork is replacing teak as the decking of choice on some new
yachts and is also being used to cover old fiberglass decking on others.
Ground, mixed with chemicals, compressed, and sliced into
planks, cork displays the burnished gold tones similar to those for
which new teak is known. Properly sealed, cork decking will
maintain its warm color for years while providing a tough-to-defeat
surface that sheds water, grease stains, fuel oil, and fish gore.
Cork decking goes down in strips like teak, with a similar black
caulk in the channel between strips. A lighter caulk gives the
appearance of teak-and-holly to interior decking.
Unlike teak, cork bends nicely on a cambered deck, and most spills
will wipe up or wash off with soap and water. Really, really bad stains
are removed by buffing with a Scotch-Brite pad or light sanding.
One of the drawbacks of teak decking is that it must be screwed
down. Occasionally, those screws penetrate the fiberglass or plywood
subdeck and leaking is possible, if not inevitable. Cork, on the other
hand, goes down with adhesive, just like kitchen tile. Properly
installed, it provides a waterproof surface. And the best thing: It costs
less than teak to buy, to install, and to maintain.
The owners of an 80-foot Hatteras moored in
Seattle decided installation of cork decking was
just the thing to improve its nearly perfect
appearance. They chose Seattle Yacht Service, a
distributor and installer of a cork decking
known as MarineDeck 2000, to do the work.
John Whitcomb, a partner in the business,
invited me to watch as his crew did the work.
Over a period of about three weeks, I made
four or five visits to the yacht and watched the
white fiberglass deck surface slowly develop a
soft golden hue as the new cork decking was
cut, fitted, and glued down. When the work was
complete the Hatteras did look better—more
yachty, more sophisticated, more comfortable.
The Beginning
Cork comes from a type of oak tree that grows
around the Mediterranean Sea. The stuff we call
cork is an accumulation of waterproof and
airtight dead cells that protect the tree from
scorching sun, brush fires, and drought.
For thousands of years, man has been shaving
the dead cells from the oak and transforming
them into useful products. The skinned tree
lives on, producing another crop of cork in a
decade or so. For those with a green conscience,
it is a great renewable resource.
Stazo Marine Equipment BV, a Netherlands firm, manufactures MarineDeck 2000. The
company probably is best known for producing
beautiful ship’s steering wheels in teak, stainless
steel, and polyurethane, but its cork decking,
first introduced for commercial use, is catching
on around the world as a useful new product for
yachts.
The slabs of cork cut from the trees are
ground, and the fine granules are mixed with a
two-part polyether-polyurethane binder. This
chemical soup is squeezed hard, and the final
product is a long, large and rectangular cork log.
It is then milled into planks 75 inches long and
three-eighths of an inch thick and two, three,
and five inches wide.
The two-inch strips are notched for bands of
deck caulking. Three-inch MarineDeck 2000
may also be notched for planking but is often
used for borders and trim. The five-inch-wide
material is used for large corners or circular pads
around deck chairs, windlasses, or other deck
fittings.
MarineDeck 2000 is limber and light. It can be
cut with ordinary shop tools: the SYS crew used
a band saw, a belt sander, a circular saw, sharp
knives, T-squares, and other carpenter’s tools.
Stazo has installed its cork decking product on
three-masted sailing ships, cruise ships, and on
work boats throughout Europe. Stazo says that
builders using MarineDeck 2000 include Great
Southern Yachts, Cape Horn, Aprea Mare,
Princess, Regal, Bayliner, Sea Ray, Bertram,
Hallberg Rassy, Island Packet, Chris Craft, and
Maxum.
You may have seen the cork decking on boats
in marinas or shows but didn’t know it, because
from 15 or 20 feet away MarineDeck 2000 looks
like extraordinarily fine teak.
MarQuipt, a Pompano Beach, Florida, marine
products supplier, is the U.S. distributor for
MarineDeck 2000.
Garnett Byrd, sales manager for MarQuipt,
and Seattle Yacht Service’s Whitcomb summed
up additional benefits of cork decking:
• It weighs only half as much as teak, and
installation is more efficient, with only four or
five percent of cork wasted, compared to about
25 percent or more for a teak deck.
• It is impact- and fire-resistant, and damaged
areas are easily repaired. (No more fear of guests wearing high heeled shoes.)
• Cork is a thermal and acoustic insulating
material. Things are quieter and cooler with
cork around. It is pet-friendly.
• Soap and water will clean up most stains.
Cork has no fear of diesel fuel, red wine, or
suntan lotion.
• It is also less expensive. A cork deck will
cost about $75 a square foot installed, including
material and labor. A teak deck will cost $120 or
more a square foot.
• It can be a do-it-yourself project. “Handy
people can do it, and many do,” says Byrd.
MarQuipt uses MarineDeck 2000 on boarding
ladders and ramps that it builds. Byrd said it has
been used on oyster fishing boats and on a
luxury dinner ship operating out of Seattle on
which the threat of high heels is real.
MarQuipt has been using the material since
the early 1990s and became the U.S. distributor
in 1994. The firm first installed cork decking on
a 1974 22-foot Mako sportfishing boat as a test.
It so dolled up the old boat that “it made people
think it’s a new boat,” says Byrd.
On The Job
On my first visit to the Hatteras, Larry Clark
and Robert Smith of SYS had finished sanding
and cleaning the fiberglass cockpit deck.
Working with them was Mike Hathaway, a
Pompano Beach shipwright and a consultant in
the installation of MarineDeck 2000.
They were fitting three-inch deck strips as an
edge around the cockpit and were just
beginning to cut angles and curves in wider
cork pieces to fit around a transom door, a
windlass, foot switches, and other deck gear.
They said any boat owner with good
carpentry skills could install cork decking. The
most important skill in my opinion: planning
and measuring.
That became obvious the day I watched Clark
spread adhesive and lay the last strip of cork
decking in the cockpit. It was near the middle of
the deck, and I held my breath as Clark carefully
pushed it into place for a perfect fit. Had I been
doing it, the cork strip would have been either
too wide or too narrow for that last open space.
Obviously, those planning skills are needed
when one begins laying cork on an 18-foot-wide
deck that lives up to the marine designer’s
creed: Never build a boat with square corners.
The crew marked curves on cork strips with a
pencil and protractor and then cut them
carefully on the bandsaw on the dock. Often,
final trims were done with sharp knives.
Sanding boards buffed the edges smooth.
Straight cuts were made with a chop saw or by
scoring and snapping.
The Hatteras has three hatches in the cockpit
deck. Each was trimmed with cork cut to match
curved corners and then outlined with straight
runs of planking.
Dabs of hot glue were used to hold cork strips
in place while other pieces were fitted against
them. Later, they were popped loose with a
putty knife.
The cutting and fitting produced many butt
joints. But they would disappear later with the
application of a Stazo chemical binder to plank
ends. When it is dry the joint is tight, leak-free,
and nearly invisible.
Once the decking was in place, Clark and
Smith began laying thick beads of caulk in the
slots between cork planks. On a teak deck, each
groove would be edged with masking tape to
keep the black goo off the wood—not
necessary with MarineDeck 2000.
The beads of caulk slopped over and stood
above the deck level. After it had dried Clark
used a sharp chisel to clean away the excess. A
final sanding removed all traces of the caulk and
the binder solution that had spread onto the
finished surface.
A Top Coat
Stazo and MarQuipt recommend coating a
new cork deck with a two-part polyurethane
finish to protect it from ultraviolet light and to
maintain its golden glow. Untreated cork
eventually will fade and turn gray, as does teak.
The polyurethane coating further reduces the
chance that some awful substance will stain the
deck.
The topcoating particularly is important in
tropical areas, where exposure to the sun could
damage the joint-binding compound over time.
The sun is less of a problem in northern climates,
but the topcoating still is recommended.
Three coatings are required—the last will
contain a nonskid material—and application
must be precise.
Unlike normal paint or varnish, the two-part
polyurethane will not blend while drying and
must be applied evenly. The installation manual
provided by MarQuipt recommends asking a
second person to eyeball the freshly coated
deck from a low angle to make sure no spot is
uncovered.
Should you miss a spot, you’ll need to
recoat the entire deck. You can’t just dab
some on and expect it to look uniform.
The good news is that the coating will last
for about five years, and renewing the
surface is simple: Clean the deck with soap
and water and denatured alcohol. When it
is dry, apply one seal coat with non-skid.
That’s it!
The Ultimate Job
Okay, your boat has the real thing on deck—
acres of teak. The problem is that it is old,
weathered, splintered, and worn thin. Water is
leaking through seams or plugs (who knows
really where it comes from?) and is penetrating
the core of a fiberglass deck or the plywood
subdeck found on wood boats.
It’s a big job, but your boat can be redecked
with MarineDeck 2000.
Obviously, the old teak needs to come off
first. Don’t be delicate here; Whitcomb’s crews
use a circular saw to score across the teak
planking every 12 inches and then rip it free
with prybars.
Most teak is held down with bronze screws.
Trying to remove the deck board-by-board is
futile, Whitcomb says, because the screws likely
will break if you try removing them. Or they
may not come out at all, and that means the
planks will break as they are pulled free.
Once a Seattle Yacht Service crew tosses the
last of the teak into a dumpster, it attacks the
fiberglass with a rough sander that will chew up
protruding screw ends and fair the deck. Then
several layers of fiberglass cloth are laid to
provide a waterproof surface. And then you can
begin putting down cork.
Such a job is hugely expensive, and there are
no ballpark estimates available.
But if your boat has fiberglass decks, expect
materials for a cork decking (including adhesives,
seam caulk, and binder) to cost about
$37 a square foot. Labor will boost the total to
about $75 per square foot.
Laying teak over a clean fiberglass or plywood
deck will cost between $100 and $120 a square
foot.
The Test
So how stain resistant is cork decking? I
thought about filling a couple of small bottles
with diesel fuel and red wine and carrying them
aboard. “Oooops!” I’d say as the bottles fell and
popped open on the new deck. Would it wipe
up, leaving no evidence of my stunt?
I decided not to do that. I suspected no
one would be happy with my little test. But
I asked Whitcomb.
“I would have kicked you overboard,” he told
me, “for wasting good wine.”
Garnett Byrd of MarQuipt said they poured a
bottle of red over the seal-coated cork deck in
the company Mako and went away for two
weeks. They came back and washed it off with
soap and water.
Spilled diesel fuel will wipe up with a rag.
Ditto for suntan lotion and other greasy
substances. A pressure washer turned to a low setting—not more than 400 pounds psi—will
rinse away surface dirt, Byrd says.
Abrasives or strong cleaning chemicals may
damage the cork decking and should not be
used, Byrd told me. The same advice is true for
teak decks: Don’t use harsh cleaners on wood.
“If a stain is really nasty, just sand and recoat,”
he adds. “It will look brand new.”
Can I Do It?
If a certified installer, such as Seattle Yacht
Service, does the installation, you’ll get a threeyear
manufacturer’s warranty. Do it yourself and
there’s no guarantee.
Whitcomb said his staff will go to a boat and
help an owner plan the installation of a
MarineDeck 2000 system, charging normal yard
fees for the time involved. Other distributors
probably will do the same, for a fee.
Byrd says his firm also will help do-it-yourself
boaters. “We ask owners if they can hang
cabinets in a kitchen,” he says, as a way of
qualifying would-be installers.
Byrd asks how complex a design will be, how
intricate border planks must be. He
recommends dry fitting all the pieces, to be sure
of fit, before spreading any adhesive.
Doing a dry fit is difficult, particularly for
those of us eager to see the end results, but is
the only way to do cork decking, Byrd adds.
It would make a good off-season project for
skilled boat owners, particularly for those who
keep their craft under cover.
Cutting curves, angles and straight edges
shouldn’t be tough for anyone who has done
some wood finishing. Deciding on the curves,
angles, and lengths is the hard part.
Don’t start this kind of job knowing the boat
MUST be under way in three or four weeks. Be
flexible, work slowly. Seek professional help.
The result can be a superlative new deck, one
that may make your old boat look like brand
new.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com
You are reading the text-only copy of this article. To access the article as it appeared in PassageMaker Magazine, please log in to purchase and download the PDF version of this article.