Here’s a fun thing to do….

Papillon had teak decks screwed and glued, while on the cabintop it was embedded during the lay up


A few things have led to where we are at today, the first was when the embedded teak warped a bit, the next was chasing leakage from the deck penetrations and the last was the amount of heat that teak gathers and holds only to be released to the bottom of the feet or the inside of the cabin.

Don’t get me wrong, the look of teak decks is so very nautical and attractive, but it is radically offset by the drawbacks in my opinion- not one shared as much by Kelly, but the structural stuff convinced her it was time for a change.

The first thing we tried was to pull up the teak from the embedded section- not a good time for anyone.


After that I just pulled the rubber from the deck and buried it in epoxy.


We then put down Durabak, thinking that it was the product after a lot of research..

Not really, but I’ll get to that.

While we were parked in Mazatlan we had a local worker come and pull all of the teak decks and seal up the holes. OK, now what?

We again went with Durabak as we hadn’t fully learned the lesson.

After a couple of seasons the decks looked like crap and were breaking down in the UV. Screw the Durabak folks if they say different.

So this year we decided it was time to do this right, and final. Treadmaster being the leading product in almost every review of nonskid products and something that seemed reasonable for us to attempt, We went with Treadmaster “Smooth” (not that smooth, but not waffle iron either) in “White Sand”.

Now as with all things boat, the finished job is only as good as the prep, and after the last debacle- Prep was going to be our guiding principle.

We needed the cabin top brought to smooth so the sheets of treadmaster would lay right, we had to line up the sheets so the pattern looked good even when separated by a 2” gap, we needed the side decks smoothed and the areas where gaps were going to be gelcoated and smoothed. A myriad of little detail things that added up to a month’s worth of preparation.


One of the biggest things in my mind was the taping and pattern work. Concern over that had several factors; first the look- it had to have a nice factory/custom flow while being governed by the sheet size and the embossed pattern direction, next factor was the order it was to be laid- adjacent sheets would not be laid at the same time necessarily, the epoxy used as an adhesive (we are using West System) sets too quick for the entire boat to be done in one shot, so the tape will need to be pulled up as we progress.


We did the cabintop first, laying down the sheets and rolling them out with a hard roller. Then the messy part, picking the tape, and wiping the edges with acetone.


On to the starboard deck and a little narrower area to work in. It laid well, but the bow area is pretty complex so the peeling of the tape took a while. With the help of a float it came up nicely.

Port deck went great and now it’s time to let the West epoxy set up.


I am really happy with the results, but it was an extreme facelift.