Best adhesive for EVA foam decking?

[princecaspian]

Hi all,

I have a 2023 Solara S-250DC. Love the boat, but there are a few spots where the EVA decking is coming off, specifically on one of the bow hatches for the front boarding ladder and the port side swim platform on the transom. I know that a ton of people have had this issue and that's likely why they moved to the new snap-on decking in the newer models. Either way, what's the best way to fix it? Do I need to fully remove the pieces, scrape off the existing adhesive, and reapply? Or can I just put some new adhesive beneath the parts where it's peeling off? Any advice on approach and the best materials to use would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Submariner]

Replace the failed pieces.

How to get the deck clean

How to put it back on

 

[princecaspian]

LOL - of course you have a video on this! Thanks Martin. Looks like quite a bit of elbow grease was involved. I wonder if I reach out to Fluid Motion if they can just send me the original dimensions for the two (small) pieces coming off or maybe they have some leftover EVA foam for those pieces from prior to the switch.

 

[Submariner]

LOL - of course you have a video on this! Thanks Martin. Looks like quite a bit of elbow grease was involved. I wonder if I reach out to Fluid Motion if they can just send me the original dimensions for the two (small) pieces coming off or maybe they have some leftover EVA foam for those pieces from prior to the switch.

Raptor decking would have the templates for your boat. Send them an email. They'll be able to send you back the drawings that you can confirm are the pieces you need. https://raptordeck.com/contact/

However... when I thought I only needed 1 or 2 pieces.. turns out, I needed all the pieces as they'd all failed (4 year old decking). So we pivoted to SeaDek, they had better designs, fish ruler, were willing to put our boat name into our decking, and just made the boat look even better. The way BlueSeasFab templates the SeaDek decking, I expect to get 7-10 years out of this EVA foam decking. The reason why is explained in this follow-up video.

There's a third video, that goes over everything you ever wanted to know about EVA foam decking.

 

[Submariner]

LOL - of course you have a video on this! Thanks Martin. Looks like quite a bit of elbow grease was involved. I wonder if I reach out to Fluid Motion if they can just send me the original dimensions for the two (small) pieces coming off or maybe they have some leftover EVA foam for those pieces from prior to the switch.

It's also not a lot of elbow grease. One of the big advantages of owning a small boat is there's less deck to clean.

 

[Submariner]

I'd recommend taking this opportunity to get creative and make your boat "pop". 😎