I hear talk about lack of maintenance but it still needs cleaning and in some cases stain removal. You can get by with less but I wouldn't. I'd mop it the same as I would with teak. Also the flexiteak and other similar products mark easier from shoes.
If I were buying a used boat for 500k and above it would not even look at it if the owner did not install real Teak. The fake teak will curl at the ends from the Sun and shrinks. If the owner skimped on the teak install where else did he cut corners? Maintenance?? Real Teak really makes a yacht look beautiful.
Point taken. I just don’t think the teak on our Sunseeker was well done. It is far too thin and has worn through to fibreglass. Maybe I can do it thicker if I redo teak.
We had a late model Mutt at Huckins. Tried to match the warn teak deck strips on the aft deck, steps and aft platform. Gave up and finally replaced all the teak on the aft. It was just to thin to begin with. Repairs were a wash. Replacing whole sections was the only answer. Think of teak strips thinner than vainer with factory paper thin bungs. This was half that. Huckins did a great gob of showing this to the owner and installing a great teak replacement package at a great prices.
If I were considering synthetic teak for weight or maintenance reasons, I would use Estech rather than Flexiteack. Best, Maldwin
Yes, generally they are re-teaked with much thicker teak. All of the Euro yacht builders under 100' use very thin teak when the boats are new. It lasts 10 years or less.
Five in the swamp... Did I mention or reflect, Mutt teak is thin... Can only hope SunSeeker is better, Doubt it..
We decided to go for real teak (12mm on 6mm okume). Not because it was my opinion... The vessel is based in Italy and will be for resale in spring 2020 after a complete refit (engines and gen landed, zero hours overhaul by MAN incl. 3rd party test bench, complete engine room renovation, hull painted, AC's changed for inverter units, full wax etc.). In Italy nobody asks for maintenance of teak decks: a 72footer has a crew of two and the crew is paid anyway ;-) Real teak is still a sign for value to them. I personally do prefer weight, maintenance, longevity of any kind of fault teak. And yes, I as well realized the difference between the manufacturers.
May I ask you which MAN model of engines, where in Italy are you doing the job, and possibly also a ballpark cost for the engine overhaul alone? You can also reach me via email (just adding "@yahoo.com" to my username), if there's anything you don't want to disclose publicly. Thanks anyhow!
My Flexiteek has been on the boat since 2004. The swim platform is always exposed so I am quite confident it is a quality product. As for the expectation that ‘real’ teak will help with resale, that’s why I am asking. For me it wouldn’t be a negative, but I understand your opinion which seems to be the popular one.
It's impact would vary by market. Australia might be much different than Europe or the US. I would venture to say it will impact you less than if you were in Europe as Australians have generally been more pragmatic as shown in the design of the most successful Australian brands. I'd say the US would have some of boat and Flexiteek would turn many buyers off but appeal to some. Then, I'd say Europeans would, on the whole, be bothered more by fake teak.
This is a picture of my faux teak. I think it has about 4 years old. It is not maintenance free and it is hot to the touch, but it is not that big of a deal. Rightly or wrongly I chose faux teak because I thought it would hold up better than teak on the swim platform. It does have a 1/16th of an inch of seam that the installer has fixed once but I am pretty sure it is back. Going back to the boat next week after the hurricane layup, will check on the seam. Feel free to comment on whether you like the look or not. Carl, I tried to convert pixels to megabytes as megabytes is how my IPAD sizes pictures. The conversion was more than I could handle so I apologize if I exceed the size.
I've managed a boat with fake teak on it since 2014. It rarely even needs to be washed. If you do, you just quickly hit it with the same washdown brush and boat soap. Once a year we wipe a clear sealer on it that keeps the color nice and it shiny. It's bogantech, but I think they are not around. I've also dealt with a boat with flexiteak long term and it too, either once in a while hit it with the washdown brush and boat soap......or Spray nine on stains....but much much easier than natural teak.
That lools good for the rear platform. If it were installed over all the decks then it would be subjective. You have an older boat and looks good. I've seen it on several Formula boats and 45 yacht and for the price they were charging I would not have it installed. For your rear platform i would think it helped with being non slip and an improvement.
F350 thanks for the compliment. It was expensive. Chesapeake and Capt Ralph I will get with the transom painter and see if he can buff that out.
I think that faux teak looks good on that boat. It may not on a Rybovich, but we'd be comparing apples to oranges if that were the standard. For instance, my gelcoated toe rail is no match for a high gloss Rybie toe rail of teak, but mine looks good - at least I think so.