Historically, teak decking was planked with deep ‘v’ seams, the thickness of the teak was the whole deck, and was screwed and glued to the frames of the vessel, so apart from a vessel with head linings the deck design could be recognised looking at the deck head from inside the vessel. The caulking in those days was quite different from the products called caulking today. The caulking gaps were filled by driving in fibres of cotton, hemp and pitch with a caulking hammer, and the seam sealed with tar, pitch or marine glue. With the advent of vessels and their decks being made out of fibreglass and metal, there was an opportunity to modernise the deck process, creating the traditional teak deck look without the cotton, hemp and pitch and this time with no leaks that had been common.
Early yacht production decks in the 70s and 80s were built for good effect and not for durability; they were of minimal thickness made on marine ply sheets and glued to the fibreglass deck. To produce a deck quickly and use the minimum of material a shallow rebate edge was put on each plank, the planks glued in place and butted together. It looked good when it was new, but because the caulked seam was so shallow the caulking lines disappeared within a few years of deck cleaning or even faster if sanded. A lot of decks are built in much the same way today, but in the most part they are either hand laid with a rebate, or made on a layer of glass fibre but still with the rebated edge which is typically 3mm deep. The modern practice of removing the plywood base has been a great improvement; it eliminates delamination and moisture ingress on end grain which is the downside of looking at an old yacht's production deck.
So why should a Moody deck be any different, what is so special about the way it’s made?
Moody Decking has taken the best of the traditional past and put a modern slant on it. We build our decks face down in jigs, add a bond breaker tape to what will be the seam base to avoid seam edge failure; the decks are then backed with a single layer of fibreglass, providing us with a good waterproof, rot proof and perfect surface for epoxy gluing the deck down. Our standard teak deck thickness is 6mm and increases by requested specification to 9mm, 12mm, 14mm and even 18mm. The Moody Decking caulking seam has no rebate, the caulking is the full depth of the seam in every case regardless of the thickness of the deck. This means we provide you not only with a beautiful deck, but one that has durability.
We are the only producer of production decks with full depth seams in the UK, so if you’re having a deck put on a new yacht or replacing a deck on a loved classic insist on Moody Decking.