Teak Deck Protruding Screw Heads With Pictures!

[tgradyv7m]

Beneteau owned Wauquiez from 2000 to 2010. Some say the quality went down. As I understand it, Beneteau bought it to be their premium line. The PS40 was designed under Wauquiez ownership. I love ours: Ventus in Vancouver BC

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by Bleemus

Those are not where factory installed screws and bungs would be. They would be directly in the middle of the teak strip. Fill them with black sikaflex and go have a cocktail.

Agreed, those are not factory screws but I don't know about that drink. I'd want to know why the previous owner found it necessary.

[JonJG]

Thank you for posting Wim's advice. I have a Wauquiez Centurion 45S 2003 and have the same problem. I have had the pleasure of going to the Wauquiez facility just north of Lille to collect an black tank upgrade kit Wim had put together, and we met when he explained very patiently how to fit the tank. He is Wauquiez's chief design engineer and is a very able, patient and pleasant person. I would absolutely trust him and will make use of his guidance to sort out my deck - much easier than I feared. I have plenty of teak depth left despite a previous owner jet washing the deck and ripping out some of the summer growth wood. Sadly did quite a bit of damage but certainly still good enough to save.

Originally Posted by tgradyv7m

We purchased a Wauquiez PS 40 and am the starter of this thread. This was Wauquiez's response (I had their permission to post this). It sounds valid to me.

The teak deck was laid plank by plank, with small screws holding the plank down at against the previous plank while the glue was setting , These screws were at times left in place and covered by the caulking . The screws are normally only in the caulking lines . and a few in the marginn planks as well .
If this does not answer Your question, please send me e few pictures of the pattern of screws (or screwholes).
Best regards,
Wim

Wim VERSAVEL
Bureau d’études – Design Office

Mob : +33 (0)6 7079 3830 - Tel : +33 (0)3 2003 1461 - Fax : +33 (0)3 2003 1060
Wauquiez Boats - 20 rue du Vertuquet - 59960 Neuville-en-Ferrain - France

The screws push one plank against the other plank but the screws go into the deck . the pattern is absolutely normal .
Best solution for repair , if there are sufficient milimeters left in the teak, is to remove caulking, take out the screws, fill the screwholes for watertightness, end re-do the caulking . caulikig can be remove in total or just locally .

One issue is that the caulking was done with black silicone , so probably best to repair with silicone , which is not great for watertightness but PU wil not stick onto siliconed area .

Best regards,
Wim
Wim VERSAVEL
Bureau d’études – Design Office

Mob : +33 (0)6 7079 3830 - Tel : +33 (0)3 2003 1461 - Fax : +33 (0)3 2003 1060
Wauquiez Boats - 20 rue du Vertuquet - 59960 Neuville-en-Ferrain - France

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Jon.

[Cheechako]

I'm not convinced those are not factory screws. I remember seeing one boat like that, but can't remember at this point what it was. Too much water under that bridge.

[boatbroke]

Hi tgradyv7m,

If the screws are starting to show it is clearly that the deck is wearing down.

It may not be critical to replace (really never is I guess with a fibre-glass deck underneath) but it will need doing at some point. Unfortunately these things never get better but only get worse over time.

The way we undertook new teak decks was to use full depth planks, yes no rebate but rather full depth planks with spacers in between. Sometimes temporary screws were put into the deck on the edges of say 4/6 planks for wedging/clamping where it could be quickly repaired before the next run. They were only needed till the adhesive dried.

The spaces are then removed, the seams prepped and Sikaflex then applied full depth between the planks.

This means that effectively the lifetime of the deck is doubled because there is no fastenings left in where normally they would be at say at 1/2 depth of the plank.

I guess the short version is that yes it can be patched and tolerated but eventually it will need doing again.

Best of luck with it!

Adam

[boatbroke]

Originally Posted by GovCup2015

Have a 2004 Beneteau FIRST SERIES with teak side decks and after about 10 years noticed a few bright stainless steel brad heads emerging from the side of the rubber caulking. Now I have them everywhere.....50+ of a 45 footer. Also have some small screws directly in the rubber caulking. Appears that Beneteau marketed glued teak decks with no screws / bungs, but secretly held the teak down with brads and screws till the bedding set and then caulked over them. Now it's a major problem. Also saw this on a 2009 50 FIRST BENETEAU. CLASS ACTION again BENETEAU to gain resolution for false advertising/marketing??? Thinking of using Dremel with cutting wheel to cut brads going in on an angle from the caulk, remove brad head, and then re-caulk. COMMENTS?

Hi GovCup2015,

If possible try grab them with side cutters or snips gently and try pull them out.

Can always escalate the situation if needed, just that things that spin very fast can do damage thats not intended.

Else a trimmer with a tacked down guide can remove all the caulking in that seam for a section leaving a nice surface to re apply.

Good luck!

Adam

[Tillsbury]

My friend's 2004 Beneteau has exactly the same thing. Stainless screws diagonally into the seam, showing now. He's removed them all, injected thickened epoxy into the holes, then recaulk the extra bits. Some planks are coming up as they are held by sealant rather than epoxy. It's not nice, but at least moisture isn't into the deck as far as we can see. It'll survive another few years but is a bit disappointing for a boat only 15 years old. Another thing to watch for when buying a boat. I'd say there was one every foot or two of plank.

They are certainly original so no reason to think that similar vintage Wauquiez are the same. What a shame -- Wauquiez was one of my dream boats in the mid 90s

[Cheechako]

The reality is some teak decks stay put just from the sealant. My Hans Christian had 100's of screws and plugs, but when I did away with the teak decks, the sealant was so strong we had to break the teak into short chunks to get it off.

[tgradyv7m]

Jon, thanks for the note about Wim. Maybe in our upcoming travels I can stop by and say hello to him.

Out teak is getting worse. We have plenty of thickness left but the caulking is very proud and there are even spots that have come up. My next job is to patch the worse areas and hope for the best this winter. Next summer will be a re-caulking job. Hopefully it will last until we get to Thailand.

We are also looking into a cover for the boat. We have yet to go out during the winter although many do around here (Vancouver BC). I thought it would be a good thing to keep it dry, protected from the UV, and cleaner. Any thoughts on this? I know about the critter problem so we would get one that seals well and we do visit the boat often in winter (at least I do).

[SYAllegra]

Hello everybody


I am Sebastian and this is my first post in the Cruisersforum. I am from Switzerland, so don`t blame me for my maybe bad english, and owner of a Dufour 45 Classic located in Italy.


Right now i am doing some research because i want to recaulk my teakdeck next spring. On my deck i have the same configuration with screws in the caulking. When i started my research i found many posts in different forums saying that this is not normal, was not made by the yard, etc... But as far as icould figure it out so far many yards did it like this. At least Jeanneau, Wauquiez and Dufour, maybe even more. So i am quite sure that there are many thounsands boats out there with a teak deck like this. So it is really strange that it is so hard to find any informations about this. I am really happy about the statement from the Wauquiez guy in one of the previous post. So it sounds understandable that these screws were only used to hold the planks in place when they were glued to the deck.


So i think my way will be to remove that screws once the old caulking is out and fill the screw holes with epoxy.


Did anybody recaulk his deck in this way and tell me if this works fine? Or do you know any other websites/ posts where i can find more information about this topic?


Thank you.


Regards
Sebastian