Swan 41/048 (Pampero) Teak Deck problems - help needed

Hello,

what a nice and warm weather it has been here in southern Finland. Today we lifted Pampero to a safe boatyard for winter.

During the last two weeks in water I noticed that some small parts of teak deck had been blunged up. All the sealings were still in place but it somehow seems that attachmend between teak and deck is separated...

Is it possible to fix these issues without removing the whole teak deck?

Does teak dry (fully) also underneath if it has not been saturated/coated with teak oil etc. ?

She has been sailing in the Baltic Sea for all her life so salty waters don't put load on the materials so much.

I'd appreciate if someone has any ideas. I can also send more pictures or share dropbox if it helps? There are more photos over this issue.

I'll try to post some maintenance history (autopilot, toilet, seacocks etc.) later on..

Fair winds,

Henri

s/y Pampero 41/048

Pampero wating in harbour

Foredeck teak bulged up

Bulged teak

As a Swan enthusiast i've been enjoying this forum for years, but as an RH Swan owner i've been hesitant to post before. That being said, as long as the moderators approve, i could offer a few thoughts.

The teak deck is glued and screwed onto the boat. Based on your pictures, the glue could have lost adherence. You should be able to figure it out by tapping the deck, comparing the sound. I notice a screw missing a bung in the second photo. The wood around the screw looks dark. Could this be the leak that caused the failure of the glue?

If you find that parts of the deck are taking longer to dry than others, there might be a leak in the caulking or around screws.

This can surely be repaired without replacing all of the deck. If the bulge is located in a part of the deck with cored laminate, you might want to measure moisture levels to make sure the core is dry before you close the deck. Otherwise, replacing old caulking and bungs is standard maintenance.

Pampero looks great and i envy the jocky pole! Ours has dissapeared at some point of the boat's life.

Hi Henri

It should be no problem to replace parts of the teak deck, not for an experienced boatyard anyway.

We have done exactly this on Kairos for about 4 years; while we didn't have bulges we had a leak caused by a broken centerpiece/fish plank. Our boatyard removed the broken plank and made a new one - after one season it had weathered enough to blend in with the old teak.

From your pictures it looks like your teak deck is screwed (and glued), it might even be the original one as newer teakdecks tend to be glued only, with screws only on the outside planks. It is/was also common to create templates of sections of the deck and then 'prefabricate' these on a carrier base, which in turn is then glued onto the deck base. Also results in fewer screws, I believe.

If your teak deck is made from individual planks it should be relatively easy to replace sections of it, but also doable if it was made from sections.

Teak tends to have enough natural oils to be waterproof on it's own, we have never oiled ours but there are many different pinions on this ...

Hope this helps, I keep my fingers crossed that you can find and repair the issue!

Fair winds

Stefan

SY Kairos (57/043)

Hi again,

There are some photos of the repairs we did to the old deck in the refit post I created:

https://classicswan.org/forum/post_thread.php?thread=2673&nopage=1

Hope the link works and the photos help.

Fair winds,

Stefan

SY Kairos (57/043)

Hi Stefan and thank you very much for conveincing me that it can be fixed. And thank's for the link.

Due to forum limitations I created a Dropbox folder where you can find some more pictures:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/uov6oh07w6cnd439k9ed2/AJROVydWEdaNeTs_KixakYM?rlkey=hbfpievgvj44k2ylah58d33o1&st=r2igdppc&dl=0

Teak deck on Pampero still seems to be quite thick, even thicker compared to all new one (6mm). As my (amateur) opinion I'd say that fixing the deck would be possible. Many of the boatyards tend to suggest replacing the whole deck... sellers talk. 

If the planking is original, probably the adhesive is not so well bonding so removing is possible. If start very gently removing first the screws and second all the caulcking. After that plank by plank slowly trying to remove them.

I hope we could fix these problematic parts and gain few years before refitting.

BTW what was the cost for total refit??  =)

Fair winds,

Henri

s/y Pampero 41/048

Dear Henri,

you are very lucky, that's the original teack deck, a first quality Burma teack, and I agree with you, all you could do to preserve it, please do!

Nowadays, in Mediterranean area, replacing a teack deck would be around Euro 1,200/1,600 per sq. m. for a "...first quality..." teack, which is not even 10% of yours (in quality)...!.

Fair winds!

matteo (47/069 Vanessa)

Hello Henri, a fellow Yacht Club member!

The following observations and guesses are based on my long (40 years) experience of surveying sailing boats at different yacht clubs and also in many many buying and selling situations. In no way do I want anyone to be offended by my comments, they are meant to be informative. We Finns are known for our direct and unvarnished way of speaking - after all, we rarely open our mouths to speak.

After having seen the high resolution pictures you published in Dropbox, I would venture a guess between the following options, which I will list in order of probability:

1. The deck is original, but a non-professional has recaulked the seams. The latter can be seen by the uneven width of the sikaflex seams in places and the broken edges of the teak planks (PIC1). A professional can repair the Sikaflex seams on the deck cleanly (I've done the same errors when recaulking the seams on one of our previous yachts decades ago). I also think some of the teak planks might have too many fixing screws compared to the Nautor original install.

2. The deck was rebuilt by an amateur about 20..30 years ago. The reasons for this are the same as above plus the teak plank lengths on either side of the king plank are not equal in places.The differences are hard to spot but they do exist. Some vertical seams are not symmetrical, there are more seams at the SB side of the deck.

3. It is also possible that the material used is not teak but iroko. Iroko planks usually starts to twist when wet and the sikaflex bond to the deck will fail in the end. From your description, this is what happened? There is nothing wrong with iroko decking, many cheaper production boat brands have had iroko decks instead of teak for a long time. I also know of iroko being widely used for retrofitted decks for older boats in Finland as it is considerably cheaper than teak and easier to get.

About the idea of a new deck. Last February (2024), at the Stockholm Boat Show, I was discussing about the teak decks for new boats with the sales manager of a Swedish boatyard known for its quality boats. He had previously worked for Nautor in the same position for a long time. Good teak is almost impossible to get anywhere these days and they use the latest version of Flexiteak for this reason. He speculated informally that Nautor would soon come to the same conclusion. The teak deck on the 50-foot boat he demonstrated looked so real that my good friend, a long-time wooden boat enthusiast, even approved of its appearance. Interesting! Cost-wise, the price is about the same as a deck made of real teak and I agree with Matteo with his idea of the price.

I myself ordered a new teak deck from Scandinavian Teack Deck (former Nautor teak deck division) for one of our previous boats. They measured the deck digitally and it was made with CNC-tooling. It was delivered in three ready made pieces and was successfully glued to the deck with some sailing buddies of mine. The quality was unimaginable, all the teak ribs were full length and the longitudal sikaflex seams were impeccable. Industrial workmanship at its best. When I saw the boat 16 years later last year, the deck still looked really good.

All my best regards,

IHe, skipper of the Swan 431/12 "CAID"

PIC1

There is a mistake in paragraph 3 of my post. It should be:

3. It is also possible that the material used IN THE REBUILD is not teak but iroko.

Nautor has always used the best teak available.

Thank you Ilmari for sharing your experience with us!

You are right at least with section 1. ... an amateur has done the recaulking in beginning of 2023. They reckaulked all the seams, removed a huge amount of screws and replaced them with new epoxy based glue and teak plugs.

What do you think would be the next step?

1. Trying to repair / fix the old deck with professionals

2. Do a maintenance during the winter and plan carefully the refit process for next winter (25-26) if possible

If I understood right the roof (ruff) is only part of the deck with sandwich structure? -> so doing a careful maintenance for the roof would give us possibility to sail for the next summer instead of refitting..?

I've asked a price for new teak deck vs. syntethic version. BOTH of these offers are calculated without base work (gf, sanding etc.) and removal of old deck plus deck hardware. Prices incl.tax

Flexiteex was 23000 eur

Scandinavian teak deck 56464 eur 

The historical value and heritage of these S&S boats is significant, but compared to the monetary value I really need to consider the options. And as Ilmari wrote :"The teak deck on the 50-foot boat he demonstrated looked so real that my good friend, a long-time wooden boat enthusiast, even approved of its appearance. Interesting! Cost-wise, the price is about the same as a deck made of real teak and I agree with Matteo with his idea of the price."

Fair winds!

Henri

s/y Pampero 41/048

Hi Henri

I am sure that you can patch up the deck for a few more years, especially as you don't seem to have a leak into the cabin. We had a leak and even then we managed to patch and sail for a good few years before the refit. Probably would have postponed this even longer if it wouldn't have been for Covid restrictions providing us with what we thought was an opportunity to give up a sailing season that looked like it wouldn't be that exciting anyway...

Any money spent on the patching would obvioulsy be lost when you decide to replace the lot so you might want to way this up.

Good quality teak is indeed virtually impossible to get these days with the embargo that Burma is now under. This came in around four weeks after we decided to go ahead with our replacement and I remember our boatyard rushing to the teak vendor to select the timbers/planks immediately after we signed on the dotted line... They later told us that they thought that this might have been the last traditionally teak deck they would do. Teak to patch up some areas should still be around though but for a full replacement it looks like you will need to consider alternatives.

As for costs - for us, it was mostly driven by labour costs as often is the case. We had all the work done by our boatyard as we didn't have the time nor the experience to do anything ourselves. Plus it was easier this way from a warranty standpoint - if all is done by the boatyard and something needs a re-work, there are no excuses. Overall, for Kairos 57' it came in at a high 5-digit number in Euros. The cost for the teak itself was only around 15% of that. This was based on 12mm teak thickness, which was only marginally more in material cost than 8mm.

Hope this helps and fair winds,

Stefan

SY Kairos (57/043)

Some update...

Pampero's deck was inspected by a professional craftsman. Outcome was that almost 70-80% of the teak deck is loose from underneath and there's also some water. Last winter didn't exactly help us since the deck got all frozen.

It seems that previous owner had changed only the elastic seamings and plunges, but didn't fix the bonding to the hull. From a professional point of view the damage was already happened when we bought her so there was nothing we could have done to prevent it.

So now she is going to have a new teak deck installed. Unfortunately our sailing for the upcoming season is limited only to may, when we're sailing her to shipyard for repairs. This is a one way to lower the total costs so that shipyard can schedule our order to a normally "quiet" time and keep staff working. Project will start in the beginning of june by dismantling the deck and interior panels. After confirming the hull is dry, refit will be starting at the beginning of august. Project is planned to be ready at the end of december.

We calculated and compared many options (syntethic teak, kwgrip, painting) and at the end of the day desicion was unanimous - new teak deck. Price for work between repairing and refitting was almost the same. Only difference we're material costs.

Some other updates are planned to be made like front hatch, electronic panel, anchor winch etc.

We'll send some more info when the project starts by dismantling at the beginning of june.

All tips & tricks are more than welcome.

Fair winds.

Henri

s/y Pampero 41/048

Hi Henri

I am sorry to hear that you will lose most of the season but it is the right decision to have the deck done properly. This should hopefully give you another 25+ years of peace from he deck...

We did exactly the same when we had Kairos' decl replaced - sacrificied a season to benefit from the savings available from utilising the yard's quieter time.

Hope all goes well - here is went fot Kairos:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V0PYMY-Ie_k

Fair winds,

Stefan

SY Kairos (57/043)

Hello,

Hi Henri,

In search for other information, I just ran across your pics of Pampero. Great to see that she's still in nice condition. I remember her from when I was a teenager and she was tied up outside, the hockey profile, Lasse Björn's house on Stora Essingen, in Stockholm. 

Since 8 years. I'm the happy owner of 41/028 "Cavallino", and am maintaining her original teack decks. – An ongoing project 😉

If Pampero by any chance have the original fore deck hatch, I'm looking for a pic showing what the latch-arrangement for locking the hatch looks like. 

Fair winds

Andreas Bergström

41/028 Cavallino

Hi Andreas and sorry for my late response.

This inform about Lasse Björn's ownership of s/y Pampero, feels almost like we found the father of the boat. We tried to search this information for long time since it wasn't included with boat papers.

I played hockey for 13 years so Lasse's name came up time to time. He was a true legend for team Sweden.

Pampero's refit is going on as planned and at the moment, new teak deck is being modeled at J.Petterssons boat yard near Hanko. I'm starting to understand why it's so expensive. The amount of time already used for just removing the old deck and sanding is remarkable. Must say that these people are real professionals!

There are few pic of the project below, after removing of teak deck.

Funny detail is that there was "funnyface" drawn at the Nautor factory back in 1976 when Pampero was assembled by someone.

About the hatch...unfortunaterly Pampero didn't have the same kind of locking mechanism as seen in Matteos pictures. Our version was a sliding latch.

Link below:

https://www.svb24.com/en/bavaria-deadbolt-for-trap-doors.html

I't would be great to hear more about Pamperos origins. Do you know was she registered in Kungliga Svenska Segel Sällskapet?

Fair winds,

Henri

Hi Henri,

Now it's my turn to apologize for the late reply. 
Glad to hear that the inf was of interest. I don't know for sure but would assume that Pampero was registered to KSSS or Svenska Kryssarklubben (SXK). I'm not sure if or to what extent she was raced. Lasse Björn also had a summerhouse in Lindalssundet, in the Stockholm archipelago, where Pampero often was moored during the summers. 
 
Thanks for your input re the hatch, I received some great feedback from the forum, that I will research  

Big job you are undertaking with Pampero's deck. What great improvement that will make, I'm sure you're exited to see the results.  Are you planning any modifications? If you are interested I can send some pics of the changes I have made on Cavallino. To improve short-hand sailing, the main halyard, reef-lines, boom vang, outhaul och cunningham are lead to the cockpit. 

/Andreas

Hi Henri,

Thank you Andreas! Sounds like I'll need to visit Sweden in the near future =)

The project is quite big and we are also doing other modifications as well. I know there are different approaches and mindsets when going through these processes. Our goal is trying to maintain the original details of the boat BUT keeping it sea safe and applicable for two persons as possible.

Some of the modificationsa are listed below:

- upgrading the rest of navigation instruments to B&G (triton2 dspl.), new VHF+AIS, radar (Halo 20+) all NMEA2000

- windlass (Lofrans x2) + Ultramarine anchor + chain 50m -> we haven't yet decided how to make a compartment to the bow. One idea is to make it watertight and drill water drainage holes to both sides.

- front hatch modernization -> after several weeks of planning we decided to switch the original front sliding hatch to a modern Lewmar. This was more considered as a safety measure because I found out that smaller people and youngsters aboard didn't have enough force to open it. But we still saved the original parts if someday mind will change.

- deck painting, original stripes etc. window frames painted and new polycarb. renewed

- all winches upgraded to Andersen ST -series

- mainsail traveller system upgrade to Harken

- new LiFepo batteries and motor alternator with smart charge controller

- all cabling, hoses etc. renewd

Anders: Please send me pictures of your short handed modifications and implementation to Cavallino

Pampero's project continues and here are three pics from this week. I'll post more of them as the deack is beginning to shape.

//Henri

Dear Henri,

thanks for updating us on Pampero's refitting project, and congratulation for what you are doing!

Please go on keeping us posted with the proceedings.

Which Lewmar hatch are you going to install?

LifePO4 batteries will change your life, I have installed three x 200 Ah  Viktron batteries onboard Vanessa two years ago and I haven't plugged shore power ever since (I have two alternators <Bosch, 90 and 100 Ah> working in parallel, with  manual regulator, and two "flying" solar panels which I get on the deck when I am at anchor), and I daily run my watermaker, two fridges switched on 24/7 plus some minor stuff.

Looking foreward to seeing more pics!

Fair winds,

matteo (47/069 Vanessa)

PS do you know Members of the S&S Swan Association have a special and dedicated discount on Andersen winches (in case please send me a private message and I will get you in touch with the person who will take care of you with a special offer).

matteo (47/069 Vanessa)

Thank's Matteo!

I will be keeping you up to date. I had a quite "tight" schedule for the past months so now it's loosing up and more time for writing.

Front hatch is Lewmar ocean 70 (694x694) flush mounted (item 39670070).

First arrived hatch had some manufacturing flaws so I made a reclamation. The second one is better, but unfortunately not as good quality as same ones back in 90's.

After a lot of searching through the internet it seems that most of the different brand manufacturers use same parts these days. So only difference is how the hatc looks like.

I'll PM you for the winches.

At the moment, ideas are welcome for constructing the anchor chain locker.

FAir winds to all,

//Henri

Dear Henri,

original hatches were Goiot, and the old ones are still here and absolutely perfect after 50 years.

End of a story, new ones are not made of the same quality.

Lewmar are perhaps better than the new Goiot, but not at all as good as old Lewmar stuff used to be 30/40 years ago, in particular the hatches have those plastic hinges which are very delicate and break very easily (but stupidly expensive when you are buying a spare!). I don't know if they are built in China, but they look to be.

Anyway I don't think you have other options if you want to install a commercial hatch, so be prepared for a hatch which won't last and won't be watertight as the original Rod Stephens designed sliding hatch, alas!

Fair winds,

matteo (47/069 Vanessa)