When I was considering the purchase of Treylya I was appalled with the condition of the teak.  The previous owners owned a dog(s) and I guess that over the years the teak on the port side was worn from the dog jumping on and off the boat from the port side.  On the port side the teak was worn thru and missing in several spots.  John dropped the price accordingly and told me about a friend who worked in a shop in Nanaimo, BC that provides teak decking that could get me a lead on some cheap teak.

This was a project that was on my mind whenever I was on the boat.  Whenever I docked at a marina and talked to other sailers they commented on what a nice boat Treylya was but I couldn’t help but feel the embarrassment of the crappy looking teak.  Wood working is not one of my strong points, actually I’ve never really done any…  and this would be a time consuming, expensive job.  But wood working runs in my family and I’m hoping that somewhere along the way I might have picked up the aptitude for it…  maybe…  groan…

Here’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in reverse order…

The Ugly
As mentioned, the teak looks terrible and is ripped up in several areas.  All seats have to be redone…  period…

The Bad
I googled teak deck replacement and found a bunch of great videos and websites dedicated to it.  Most sites talked about the cost of a deck replacement as being very high…  Typically into the Tens of Thousands…  Not what I wanted to hear but hey it’s only money right?  Also most sites talk about it taking months of man hours to complete.  Groan.  For a computer geek with no wood working experience and no tools (they are all back at my place in Newfoundland) I’m expecting this to take a very long time and be very expensive.

I’d like to get the decks done for summer cruising but I’m heading to Chicago next week for a week and then back to Newfoundland for a few weeks snowmobiling so when the heck am I going to get time to do this!!!

The Good
As with everything in life.  It ain’t all bad…  The area that I need to fix up is rather small as I’m just re-covering the hatches / seats in the cockpit.  John got me in touch with the fella in Nanaimo and it turned out that he was able to get me some nice (albeit a little thin) teak for $2000.  He said it should do me for 9-10 years and will improve the appearance and increase the value of the boat.

I have visions of sailing around with a shiny looking new teak deck…  I’ll be standing there with the breeze in my hair and people will be in awe of what a beautiful sailboat that I’m skippering.  Ah, the free life of a sailor…

However, back to reality, I got a feeling that this is gonna be a long, slow, painful journey…  Stay tuned…