Fitting teak deck panels coamings and covering boards

We've been working hard all of last week , thru the weekend, and the first part of this week trying to get this project done so the owner could take his new 60' Hatteras sportfishing yacht to the islands for the Bahamas billfish tournament this weekend. In this first picture we have glued down more of the deck panels.Each panel has been built exactly to the width required to fit between hinges and hatch edges.We start gluing in the center and then work out towards both sides.




While we have been gluing the deck panels we have also milled out the material for the coamings.These coamings are functional as well as beautiful. When the fisherman is working in the cockpit landing or releasing a fish, he can wedge his knees under the bottom and lock himself in freeing both hands for use.

In this photo you can see two pieces of bullnose margins for the steps from the cockpit up to the cabin door. Also visible are the routers we used to rabbet out the backside.It's easier and faster to have lots of routers set up with the various required bits rather than changing bits for the many cuts needed.

Layed out and ready to start making noise, dust,and pretty parts.

After the noise and dust here are the rough parts ready to be fit on site and radiused and sanded.

Here we have glued on the first side covering board.We have to shape blocks for clamping down the outboard edge and clamp these blocks in to keep them from rolling up.

Before we started gluing on the covering boards we had to fit in the corner pieces.These are cut with a very slight taper and sanded to fit.Very time consuming, several hours for each.After the corners are fit we sand the top edge of the coaming with a long hard block to ensure a tight fit between the coaming and the covering board. Later we will shape this corner piece to flow into the coamings and the covering boards.

This is a view of the forward end of the port side coaming.This new Hatteras yacht has an extra kink in the coaming.Just a little something extra to make it more of a challenge.

This shot sows the margins for the mezzanine.The bullnose pieces are milled out of 12/4 teak lumber.

We're closing in now. We have glued and clamped the aft covering board to the boat. We still have to cut across the board in two places for the tuna door but we prefer to do this after the board is epoxied down securely.Several years ago we cut one before we glued it down and just as we finished the first cut the board exploded and within 3 minutes had split several times from end to end , a lot of expensive trash.We had used wider strakes to make up the board and when we disturbed the equilibrium the stress in the laminate just shredded the fibers of the teak.Part of the learning process.

the picture below shows the decking almost completed on the mezzanine.

Here we have installed all of the teak decking and the covering boards and coamings. The tuna door has been cut and rehinged. we still have some detailing to do .The tuna door hinge is not correct and we will have to build and polish a new one.But right now we are off the boat while the owner takes his boat back to play with.We will have to wait several weeks until they return from the Bahamas to complete the final touches.