WakeWorld - MB Carpet Replacement with SeaDek

Ok so I finally am finished with this project! Whew!!!

SO let me start off by saying that this is definitely a winter project. Very time consuming and a long lead time procuring the material. I started this project in mid April and finished mid July.

Boat: 2012 MB Sports F-23 Tomcat

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Timeline:

- Mid April start

- Removed all the carpet (1 day)

- Partially created the template from the SeaDek kit (1 day) (partially because SeaDek did not send me enough material for the whole boat)

- Waited another week for the extra template kit to arrive.

- Mailed off the templates On May 2nd

- CAD Drawings where emailed for approval on May 30th (4 weeks)

- Had a few alterations that needed to be made in the jointing pattern and spent a week or so emailing back and forth with SeaDek to explain my issues.

- Drawings had to go back to CAD for modification, Finally got them back for approval June 25th (3.5 weeks)

- Floor manufacturing complete July 3rd (1 week)

- Shipped from Florida to Portland (1 week)

Total time from Templates to delivery = 10 weeks!

Based on the information on their website I had expected this time period to be about 5.5 to 6 weeks so this put me a month behind schedule

Customer Service with Seadek was challenging and I got pretty frustrated at times. At one point I emailed back and forth a few times with one of the Sales VP's about my frustration. His comments were that he was sorry for my issues but that SeaDek has experienced tremendous growth this year and was in the process of moving to a larger facility and were hiring and training more people. So hopefully in the future, their lead time will be cut down some.

In the end though, I am very happy with the product they have supplied and that has somewhat made me forget about the poor customer service.

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On the bright side, all this waiting has given me ample time to prep the floor for the new flooring - and that takes a lot of time!

Once I got the carpet stripped away, the hard work began removing all or the old carpet adhesive. Im not sure if the carpet that comes in our boats is cheap or if the adhesive is just really good because while removing the old carpet individual strands or pieces would remain stuck to the floor pulling through the mesh.

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To remove the old adhesive I tried a couple things : Mineral spirits, MEK, and Acetone.

both the MEK and Acetone did a fair job but the evaporation rate on them is too quick requiring a lot of re-application.

I found that if I covered the areas with rags and then wet them with mineral spirits letting them soak for a bit, the adhesive came off pretty easy with a scraper in the flatter smooth areas.

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The raw fiberglass beneath the carpet however is not very smooth and not very flat so it took quite a bit of scraping and scrubbing with a brillo pad in those areas to get it all off.

After getting all of the adhesive off I next had to "level" a couple areas. The areas over the ballast tanks was nice and level but the transition from the Starboard tank to the observers compartment was very uneven. I also found that the area under the helm was quite uneven as well. I used bondo to fill in and level both these areas as best I could. The SeaDek does "show" uneven areas a lot more than the carpet did primarily because of the routed in "lines" creating the faux teak effect so my advice to anyone doing this is to take the time and make sure some of the rougher areas are level and smooth.

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Next I prepped the floor with a couple coats of urethane bed liner (I used Monsterliner) to seal the fiberglass surface and create a nice smooth bonding surface for the SeaDek. You can get this stuff in many different colors, I choose black.

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Finally the flooring showed up in the mail and it was time to finish the job.

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For those of you that have not seen this stuff it is basically a big sticker. For each piece you take a sharp razor bblade and gently slice through the paper backing near the middle of the piece and turn up the corners. Then you dry fit it and position it where you want it. You then tape one side down with masking tape to keep it from moving.

Once you have it in place you start applying the non taped side starting at the middle where you sliced the paper backing pulling it off as you press the flooring down working from the center to the edges. after you get one side down you peel off the massking tape and do the same with the other half.

CAUTION - GO SLOW, take your time because once you stick it down it is STUCK!! there is no pulling it back up and re-positioning.

I found that in a couple places after I had installed it, a few air bubble formed. Not sure if this was because of heat or sunlight or some reaction with the glue. I used a small exacto Knife to make small slits in the bubble and forced the air out.. worked great.

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And that is really all there is to it..

This project is more on the expensive side. Seadek charges by how many sheets of material it takes to cut all the pieces. I opted to do the lockers as well with the Faux Teak as I wanted everything to match but I think a lot of money could be saved by doing the "hidden" areas such as the lockers in their standard material and the interior floor in the fancier stuff.

All in with the chemicals to remove the adhesive, the monsterliner, and the Seadek for the entire boat including the swim platform was around $3k. Getting rid of that crappy, wet moldy carpet... Priceless B)

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