The decking appear to be original, is screwed down and doesn't give the impression it's ever been cared for. It's coming up in at least two places and the sealant between the boards does not look great either. The sealant under the gunwales, which I'd guess is required to stop ingress of water under the boards (?) has not been maintained and is peeling off. Indeed, most of it isn't doing any proper sealing and doesn't look like it has been for some time.

I'm trying to understand our options here and would welcome any input from people with knowledge and/or experience of the Hanse teak deck.

These seems to be the options:

1) Replace it - nope. Silly expensive

2) Replace it with fake teak - nope, still too expensive to consider

3) Renovate it - with possibility that the job that will end with us sanding it all, taking it up, re-laying it and resealing it - nope, far to torturous and will probably end up looking quite crap, and I understand the teak boarding may only be 7mm thick which may preclude sanding

4) Repair just the boards that are loose - might not be too hard , but may be never ending and will deck probably require attention again next year, the year after, the y... etc etc

5) Pull up the whole lot, fill the screw holes and apply non-slip paint

To me the last option seems about the only viable option on a 25 year old boat but I know nothing. I have no love of teak and the maintenance it might need and even less for fake teak.

Any input would be very appreciated.

Thanks
Simon

Hi Barcombe Boy. I have a H312 [2007] with teak cockpit, its original, and its bonded down with Black Sika type adhesive, its thin but perfectly servicable. I doubt that your 311 with what appears to be screwed down teak was originally screwed,  no boat builder over  last 20/30 years uses screws to fix down teak, its always adhesive  bonded. It never made sense to perforate a perfect GRP molded waterproof deck [maybe with a balsa or foam core] with screws once suitable adhesives became common in yacht building.

Could it be someone has lifting teak, and tried to screw it in few places?, a bad idea.

Another observation on current boat building with teak is;  due the high price and lack of supply the teak laid in a deck is very thin and doesnt last long if you sand down. In fact its so thin it could not be screwed down. 

Bear in mind on old Halberg Rassy yachts with screwed down teak decks the teak was thick enough to screw and thick enough to put plug on top of screw to hide screw head.

Good luck with your boat search.

Thanks very much for your reply Perry. It is appreciated.

I've dug out some photos from the advert. It looks like the teak deck was screwed down when it was installed in the boat, which I've no reason to believe was not in 2000 when the boat was made. You can see that the screws are capped, although many of the caps seem to have dropped off. If, as I've read, the teak is likely to be only 7mm deep this doesn't leave a lot of wood for the screws to hold.. and may be the reason a couple of portions of it are coming up. My initial feeling is we ought to price in removing the teak, filling the holes and painting the deck. However, I have no idea how laborious it will be, whether it's a reasonable idea and how the screw holes might affect the integrity of the deck. Any comments welcome.