New Flooring for Sound Trek

Better than new...

Sound Trek is a 2008 Meridian 490 that we purchased from the second owner.  The boat had been very well maintained, but had been used (as a boat should be).  While the vast majority of the boat showed very little wear, the same could not be said for the carpets.  Sound Trek was a perfect example of why carpet in boats is a bad idea (in our humble opinion at least).

Original Carpet:

The above pictures probably don't show the extent of the wear on the carpet, but do a good job of illustrating the original carpet installation done in all new Bayliner 4788s and Meridian 490s (which are just newer versions of the 4788).

Previous owners of our 490 had already removed the carpet from the pilothouse, but we didn't love the work done on that floor or the stairs leading up from the salon.

The Lonseal flooring used had held up well and seemed tough, but the quality of the finish work wasn't great.  In the end, we just didn't like the look of the Lonseal enough to want it throughout the boat.  All we knew was that we definitely wanted to get rid of all carpeting.  Side note, we aren't big fans of carpeting in general and have very little in our home.  We also have a big dog that regularly cruises with us, and he would undoubtedly ruin new carpeting in the boat very quickly.

Slowboat.com 

After discussing flooring updates for some time, we had concluded that it was not a project we were willing to handle on our own.  Not necessarily because of a lack of skill or interest, but largely due to the significant time commitment likely involved.  Honestly I was a bit intimidated by all the hatches in the salon floor of the 490/4788 - in retrospect this worry was probably over blown on my part.

So, where do you find someone you can trust with such a big job?  Well, about the time we were getting serious about this project, I ran across the following post on slowboat.com.

http://slowboat.com/2019/01/new-airship-before-and-after/

In the post Laura Domela and Kevin Morris detail the work of Frank Liddell (La Conner, WA) redoing the flooring in a new to them Nordic Tug.  Laura and Kevin used a commercial flooring product called Amtico (teak with maple strips) to produce a teak and holly look.  Amtico is essentially plastic, but looks fantastic and is very durable!  So, we contacted Frank and made arrangements with LaConner Maritime to have Sound Trek put on the hard for a few weeks.

In process

The process began with ripping out the old carpet.  Yes, the yacht division of Meridian (formerly Bayliner) loved staples!

After the carpet was out, the fun part began - new flooring!  However, in the salon the floor required some leveling to ensure the new flooring looked as good as possible.

  

It was fun to visit the boat weekly and see the progress!

It may not be obvious from the pictures, but this flooring is put down one strip at a time with the "holly" strips being separate pieces too.  The "holly" pieces are even slightly recessed, so it has a very nice dimensional look and feel.

A New Boat...

When the floors were complete it really did feel like we had a completely new boat!  The amtico completely changed the look of the interior, for the better in our opinion.  We were also pleasantly surprised at how perfectly the new flooring blended with the cherry woodwork in the boat–we knew it would look good, but it was better than expected.  The amtico does a great job of looking like wood, and even has a nice texture to it.  The coloring is varied enough to blend with a wide array of woodwork.

The stairs were all done using a solid teak plywood, which looks much higher quality.

Salon

Pilothouse

Lower Hallway

Stairs to Staterooms

Stairs to Pilothouse 

Master Stateroom