I have been searching for two years now for some type of flooring for my boat and think I may have found something.

What I am looking at is a maple parkuet that is 9x9 and made out of strips of wood 1 inch wide.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this?

How shall I put this. OK- Maple home center parquet flooring is cr*p and does not belong on a boat. My project 28' had it glued down all over the cabin. It kept shedding the little one inch squares. The access hatches for the shower and forward bilges were all covered up. It added a lot of weight to the engine hatches to a dangerous level. Pulling it up was a nightmare. I had to take a day off from the fumes from the adhesive remover. When I finished I had to level out the decking with wood filler. If I knew what a big rotten job taking that cr*p up I would never bought the boat. Just forget about it. Make some good patterns for cutting out carpet. Change it out every couple of years.

To address the responces, the flooring is not home center stuff. It is strips of 1 inch wide by 1/2 inch thick by 9 inch long maple held together on the back with wire to create a 9 inch square tile. I think the expansion and contraction may be minimal due to the small size of the strips.

For installation I thought I would remove the old floor plywood and use it as a pattern to cut two new pieces that would be stapled together with a layer of ice and water sheild in between. I would attach the flooring to the subfloor and then sand and finish it all in my garage. The max length is 9 feet and max width is 3 feet and there are two access hatches in the floor so it shouldn't be to heavy to drop it in place in the boat. I thought I would install some kind of baseboard to hold down the perimeter and try to screw the perimeter of the hatches to the framework from below. If it fails I can remove and try something else.

With this additional information what are everyones thoughts?

Thanks, Jason

I installed the parquet flooring about 3 years ago and have had no problems except when my AC spits out water and stains the wood. I installed a carpet throw below the AC outlet and clean my AC more often and end of problem. Carpet on the boat as it was for first year just felt and looked dirty and sticky. When I installed the wood parquet, it was much easier to clean and looked better. I cut out for the hatches and they are easy to remove. We have a 50lb dog that lives with us on the boat Friday through Sunday evening and there are no visible scratches (a lot of dog hair that becomes very visible on the wood surface but no scratches). Cost is good and performance is great. Cleanup is easy.

A friend installed wood plank flooring in his 32 and coated with polyurathane and it looks great. First year for this installation but we will continue to monitor and comment as the subject arises from time to time.

It may come down to personal preference. Cost to replace with either wood or carpet is not major and can be changed from time to time.

Max

I still had the original parquet floor but it was so dirty and black etc. Was going to replace it but I took the belt sander to it and she cleaned up real nice.
Luckily the floor comes completely out so working on it was much easier. The pic below is after sand and multiple coats of urethane. Really surprised how well it turned out.

-Karl