LIGNIA YACHT LIGNIA® Yacht is a proven real wood alternative to Burmese teak in yacht decking, making it the natural choice for long-term sustainability in the marine industry. This is beautiful, hard-working wood, sourced legally and sustainably from FSC-certified plantations, delivering peace of mind that the wood is ecologically-viable. Once they have modified the timber in their state-of- the-art manufacturing plant in Wales it provides consistent high performance against teak and even exceeds it in some cases. LIGNIA Yacht provides both price stability and continuity of supply via major international timber importers and yacht deck stockists. For more details Tel: +44 (0)1446 507077 or visit
www.lignia.com
approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). LIGNIA has set up a 50,000 Sq.ft manufacturing plant in Barry, South Wales, where the company sources its own grade of quarter sawn material from large diameter logs; this material then undergoes a process of modification (so called ‘ligniafication’) where the wood is impregnated with a resin in a patent-pending process to make it stronger, harder, more stable and closer to the properties we associate with teak. The wood changes appearance from a lighter to a darker shade and takes on an appearance very similar to natural teak.
While volume agreements with boat builders are still being negotiated, the early signs are extremely positive and I asked LIGNIA Yacht’s Senior Marketing Manager, Nigel Pompeus, how has the reaction been since launch, and Nigel said, “We are still in
the early days of producing material for yacht deck companies, but we now have distribution agreements with several well- known timber companies that supply yacht decks to the trade.
There is a brand-new production boat in the UK that has just been fitted with an entire LIGNIA Yacht deck (still under NDA so we can’t reveal which well-known yacht builder has made it, but it has been sold). We are also supplying LIGNIA Yacht for a classic boat builder in the UK right now. We have an agreement with Teakdecking Systems, Inc (TDS) in the USA, the world’s largest builder of yacht decks and they are about to start producing LIGNIA Yacht decks Stateside. We have also signed an agreement with Global Timber from Denmark, who cover all of Europe, to supply yacht deck manufacturers.”
A recent and more practical development in synthetic decks comes from Wolfshock with their Impact Control and Comfort Decking. High-speed RIBS, sports-boats and weekenders are great fun for most uses, but anything over about 20 knots boat speed, where people on the helm tend to prefer to stand up, can lead to repetitive shocks and vibration injury caused to the spine, the knee joints and ankles. But, for crew driving these fast tenders, in the long term this can become a real issue.
Such was the problem for Wolfshock inventor and keen boater, Mike Smith,
MYANMAR’S NATURAL TEAK SUPPLY IS UNDER SUSPICION ONCE AGAIN
The rising demand for natural grown teak over the last 20 to 30 years has caused a disturbing depletion of teak forests within Myanmar, through lack of control and unscrupulous growers and traders exporting logs before they were fully mature.
Despite the Myanmar government being seen to step in, the issue of illegal harvesting and price-fixing has not only not gone away, but has been placed under even deeper suspicion, the result of a recent and damning report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), claiming that teak exports from Myanmar to Europe are not complying with EU Timber Regulation rules that make it illegal for teak suppliers and traders to place illegally harvested timber and timber products on the EU market. The EIA report is centred upon a claim of corruption and fraudulent trade, run in tandem with the official legal trade administered by the state-owned Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE).
While us here at the magazine are not experts in this area, anyone interested in exploring the allegations further will find more information on the EIA’s website.
ONBOARD | SPRING 2019 | 125
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