Has teak peaked?
For generations teak has been the gold standard for boat decks. But recyclable synthetic alternatives offer boat buyers new options.
Straight-grained, devoid of knots, beautiful to look at and blessed with natural oils that leave it highly resistant to warping or rotting in even the harshest saltwater environments, teak’s position as the world’s premiere decking material is well-deserved – and a big reason why it’s still held in such high esteem among boat buyers.
But teak’s positive qualities also come with a range of caveats. Its high (and growing) cost, along with mounting concerns about the sustainability of the old-growth teak harvest have left boatbuilders and boaties looking increasingly to alternative decking materials. Some of these modern alternatives not only compete favourably against teak, but offer real advantages over the old gold standard.
The very best teak comes from the old-growth forests of Myanmar. There, an ideal balance of soil chemistry and drainage, along with a perfect climate with just the right mix of temperatures, rainfall and humidity, create a unique environment where teak trees thrive. Teak from this region has been harvested for centuries. The trees which yield the best teak are old – at least 50 but preferably closer to 100 years of age. It was all fine and well when the world built a few thousand new boats each year. But over the last century as global boat production surged into the tens of thousands of decks every year, demand for teak grew to the point where harvesters began felling trees faster than they could grow back.
The harvest of teak accelerated further about 15 years ago when Myanmar’s military-led government allowed vast swathes of old-growth forest to be levelled – a move accompanied by widespread allegations that the administration was in fact being funded by black market wood sales.
That situation changed in 2011 when the military leadership was replaced with a democratically-elected government, but decades of over-harvest had already taken its toll.
Today, Myanmar’s teak trade is tightly controlled, with clear harvest limits enforced aggressively. Still, that doesn’t stop so-called teak poachers cutting trees illegally. “We can still source Myanmar teak, but getting legally-harvested teak is the challenge,” says Richard Strauss, president of Teakdecking
Systems. “We have to work hard to ensure all of the proper provenance is in place and that our wood traders are providing all the correct documentation. It’s very expensive but we can obtain old-growth teak for those customers who want the absolute crème de la crème.”
Strauss says in recent years the market’s been supplemented by farmed teak produced in central American countries. “We’ve sourced plantation teak from there, and even from Sri Lanka, but it’s just not the same,” says Strauss. “The soil and the climate there are different enough that you don’t get the same tightness in the grain, or anywhere near the same quality consistency.
“Now that Myanmar is under democratic rule, and the military has accepted the democracy, they’re working very hard to restore proper forestry management,” he adds. “But demand greatly exceeds the supply, which has an obvious impact on prices. That’s why we encourage people to use teak wisely. This means that rather than loading a boat with the stuff from top to bottom, use it where it will make a real impact, such as on a salon floor.
“Then go with composite decking elsewhere, and especially in places like inside the tender garage and up on the bow around the ground tackle and anchoring equipment, where the deck can get beat up. There’s no need to use real teak in those kinds of locations.”
But the reduced availability and rising cost are only part of the reason for a shift away from teak in production boats and, to a lesser extent, in luxury yachts. A new cohort of younger buyers may relish the look of teak, says Strauss, but not the requisite upkeep.
“Society now demands products that are easier to maintain,” he notes. “Around the world we have more new money and younger buyers, and the bottom line is that they just don’t want to deal with the maintenance that goes hand-in-hand with a real teak deck.”
TEAK ALTERNATIVES – ALTERNATE WOODS
Teak is not the only type of wood riding the waves these days. Some boat builders have begun experimenting with alternatives – like cork.
European boatbuilders began experimenting with cork decks a few years ago following the launch of the Flax 27 Daysailer from Greenboats in Germany, built from 80% sustainable materials and fitted with cork decks.
Citing the material as being lighter, better insulating and harder-wearing than teak with superior anti-slip properties, Els Zijlstra says that the outer bark layer of a cork tree can be sustainably removed every seven years. As a deck material, she says cork beats teak by being more fire resistant, more antibacterial and offering better sound insulation.
A number of European manufacturers now offer cork decks as an alternative to teak, and poducts such as Seacork, Oceancork and Marinedeck 2000 have attracted interest from boatbuilders worldwide. Most use a formula that consists of about 95% ground cork with a polyurethane binder representing the remaining five percent of its volume. Cork decks are most often sold in rolls, either with grooves that simulate the
appearance of a caulked teak deck, or in plain sheets without the grooves. They’re available in a wide range of colours.
Other companies have begun experimenting with engineered woods as a teak alternative. At the 2019 METS trade show in Amsterdam Uk-based Lignia Wood Company won a coveted DAME Design Award for its Fsc-certified softwood decking.
Harvested from fast-growing, sustainably-managed forests, Lignia engineered wood decks start off as quartersawn softwood which is enhanced for durability through a proprietary process that results in a tough, durable deck material. In independent testing, the material has been proven to equal or exceed the properties of Burmese teak, and can withstand fungal decay and rot for at least 60 years in service. Lignia’s engineered decking has comparable weight and bonding characteristics to teak, and can have various types of stain or varnishes applied to it.
TEAK ALTERNATIVES – ENGINEERED COMPOSITES
Initially developed to closely mimic the appearance of teak but now available in a wide range of finishes, engineered composites have gained considerable traction among boatbuilders and buyers in recent years, and for reasons that go far beyond wider availability and lower cost.
For starters, fake teak comes in wide sheets, not individual wood strips, so it’s a lot easier and less expensive to install. “The boatbuilder sends us a CAD drawing or a physical template for the deck, and we produce the decking to fit,” says Chad Adams, product manager with Flexiteek. “Once it’s been fabricated, the deck can be rolled up like a carpet and shipped by courier. The material comes out as a perfect fit every time, and it’s easily repeatable, which is an enormous benefit for production boatbuilders.”
The biggest benefit to engineered panels, he adds, is their ease of installation by factory workers of moderate skill, which greatly reduces the cost of the finished boat. “Teak is a natural material and as a result there are always variances from one strip of wood to the next. So to install a teak deck, or any kind of wood deck, you need a highly skilled master carpenter to fit the individual pieces together and deal with any adjustments needed to get that perfect fit. It’s a slow, tedious process.
“By comparison, our Flexiteek G2 deck looks exactly like real teak but it rolls into place, and it’s very easy to accommodate any small adjustments that might be required during the installation. You’re talking minutes instead of days.”
While boaties appreciate the lower cost of engineered decking, even more attractive is the reduced maintenance and greater ease of repair from accidental damage. More colour options, including light grey styles, have proven popular on sailboats and production runabouts, allowing a greater variety of appearance options.
With increasing numbers of younger buyers entering the global boat market, Adams says engineered decks offer even further appeal as a more ecologically