Teak Leaking

[scoobert]

i am new to teak.
on a fiberglass boat, isn't teak laid over fiberglass?
so if they say "the teak is leaking" then in reality the fiberglass has a hole, right?

[Kenomac]

Yes & yes.

[scoobert]

thank you. before purchase i will be removing inside part to determine if the fiberglass has delaminated.

[Cheechako]

two possible leaks I suppose. The caulking may leak allowing water to sit between the teak and the fiberglass. or... the screw holes in the fiberglass/teak may leak into the deck/cabin/cockpit core. (this will not be visible from inside if it's a cored deck, and with teak over the outside, a surveyor's soundings will not be able to confirm it either)

[scoobert]

they said they redid the calking and it still leaked.
they suspected the screws.

[scoobert]

so if the deck is cored it would require teak removal, followed by fiberglass removal, removal of the core, replacement of the core, fiberglass, teak?
of course only in the leaking areas.

[Cheechako]

Where did it leak to? inside? Yeah... I had all the screw and plugs replaced on a deck once prior to recaulking. Wow... what a job. You have to get all the plugs out, get all the screws out (some will strip and must be abandoned or drilled out. Fix any bad plug holes by going one size larger. Put new screws in putting sealant on each one. Replug the holes and chisel off the plug excess, strip all the old sealant out of the grooves, clean the grooves and wipe with solvent, mix and inject the sealant, sand excess sealant off after hardening...! We were talking about 500 screw holes or so....

[scoobert]

sounds like fun. i better get a surface drill press.
yes inside, quite a bit.
are the tayana's typically wood cored?

[Cheechako]

Hmmm... dont know if the Tayanas are ply cored or balsa... but I would want to know why the water is leaking into the cabin... it should be filling up the core and not leaking into the boat...? Maybe someone drilled some holes to try to get the water out? I also know people who have just refused to recognize the roblem and just sailed their boat!

[scoobert]

the ceiling is intact. the teak HAS to be on fiberglass right? not on stringers? as like they build a house roof.

[appick]

Correct more than likely the teak is simply laid and maybe glued to the top of the fiberglass. I'm not sure about the Tanyana but on an old Formosa I had I attempted to fix a similar problem... Long story short it's ALOT of work and $$$. If I'd been smarter I would've used a shingle stripping tool to remove all the teak, then recored and laid a layer or two of new fiberglass mat and paint with nonskid.

As to it leaking in to the inside, this is very common any time you get a leak into a cored deck. Eventually it has to come out somewhere, it just simply finds the nearest/ easiest, or any hole and drips out. This is what makes it very difficult to find the actual source. As the source of the leak may be 10 or more feet away, the water is just traveling through the core to that hole to leak through.

[Cheechako]

The teak is on fiberglass on a Tayana or other f'glas boat. Are the Tayana decks scrrewed from below?
Leaks are funny, they may be entering the boat 10 feet away from where they are leaking into it. Your leak may not be the decks at all... or from a deck screw that is outside the cored area near the toerail... hard to say... just thinking out loud. I've seen hand rail leaks from the cabin top leaking into the cabin inside a storage locker near the toe rail! The leak went into the headliner, ran down the ply headliner to the liner around the portlites, down inside that into the headliner under the side deck and leak near the outside of the boat!
Do you want to spend your sailing time chasing leaks, rotten core and deck issues...?

[Mimsy]

Originally Posted by scoobert

thank you. before purchase i will be removing inside part to determine if the fiberglass has delaminated.

Be SURE to have the owners permission before doing this. Most owners are not keen on having their boats ripped up by someone who is just thinking of purchasing. You could be liable for damage and understandably so.

You have my sympathies, we had a very time consuming and expensive repair that was missed on survey because we could not rip out a bit of interior teak. I understand the owner's reluctance to allow us to do this, but it would have been nice to have known this before. I just chalk it up to the cost of purchasing a boat and have gotten on with it.

[scoobert]

yeah, there are a few severely damaged ceiling pieces, i will be asking to remove those.
i will make the purchase dependent on the condition underneath and will have written my offer down.

[Kenomac]

I don't mean to sound sarchastic.... but are you still really expecting to buy a 40ft-45ft blue water boat for under $20k that's in perfect condition? You're just going to go from one boat to the next with these sorts of expensive problems. If the solution to the deck issue will cost $20k to repair, do you expect the owner to give you the boat?