steel hull plywood deck

[david embra]

Looking for advice on having plywood sheathed in epoxy and covered with a genuine teak deck, on a steel framed and radius chined steel hull. Also thoughts on sail drive compared to standard prop shaft on a 43 foot steel sailboat.

[FAST FRED]

Plywood is a great material sheathed or painted ,

BUT
if you install a teak deck it should be glued down and NOT screwed down.

The reason is eventually the deck will work a bit and water will enter the ply, causing ROT.

Look at any Taiwan Tub built with glass shmered over plywood after 8-10 years.

The bedding compound will have let go at many deck or deck house penitrations allowing water in to the ply. ROT follows almost instantly .

A "better" system would be to lay up a foam composite sheet and use that instead of plywood.

Easy to do , and lighter,with simple curves when the outer surface is glassed in place (to get proper deck curvature) and penitrations will not harm the core (not balsa).

Corecell and Airex would be fine , sound & heat insulating for free.

Saildrives have many many more complexity to fail than a simple 2 blade on a std shaft hidden by the deadwood, on a sailboat.
For motor boats the ease of repair after a severe grounding is the plus , as is low inital cost , and almost zero design risks.

FAST FRED