The yachting industry searches for alternatives to teak

Tech titan Jeff Bezos's $500m (£366m) superyacht, Koru, delivered in 2023, uses teak in its interior and for its decking.

The dense and heavy tropical hardwood is prized for its remarkable properties such as rot and salt resistance, as well as its beauty and as a symbol of status and prestige.

The highest quality teak comes from old-growth trees, which are harvested from natural forests almost exclusively in Myanmar.

But sold by the country's military-linked sector, with little regard for sustainability, the timber is illegal to import into the UK, EU and US.

Trade sanctions were imposed on the sector in 2021 following the coup there, though imports were already heavily restricted under longstanding laws.

Netherlands-based shipyard Oceanco, which built the Koru for Bezos, was fined in late 2024 by the authorities there for using Myanmar teak in the yacht's interior.

Whether the Koru's deck is also illegal Myanmar teak – or comes from legal plantations elsewhere – is under investigation in Germany, where the first importer of the deck's wood appears to have been based.

Another luxury yacht maker, UK-based Sunseeker, was also fined in late 2024 for the use of Myanmar teak. Both Sunseeker and Oceanco have described their breaches as unintentional, with Sunseeker citing a lapse in due diligence.

It is a well-known problem that Myanmar teak continues to find its way into supply chains, passed off for example as plantation teak from other tropical countries.

Alternatives to the wood in the yacht industry are gaining traction.

They range from thermally-modified woods, to fully synthetic materials, to engineered teak laminates – and while options have been around for years, recent innovations, say the companies and some users, are making them better.

While prosecutions doubtless have an impact, driving the trend to alternatives is the exhaustion of pre-sanctions stockpiles of old-growth timber.

Meanwhile, plantation teak from younger trees is widely seen by high-end shipyards as inferior, rarely coming in the long, wide, dark-brown boards associated with quality.

Other natural woods that could serve as teak substitutes often struggle to meet the industry's exacting standards or are limited in supply. Cork is sometimes used, but its appearance doesn't appeal to everyone.

"Alternatives to natural teak are very welcome," says Walter Kollert, a Portugal-based forestry consultant and member of the steering committee of TEAKNET, a non-profit international teak information network.

"We are in danger of losing old-growth teak forests which are part of a valuable ecosystem," he says.

While the furniture and housing industries also use old-growth teak, they have generally found it easier to substitute plantation teak than the yachting industry, he adds.

Last October major luxury yacht maker Sunreef Yachts, based in Poland and Dubai, announced it was transitioning away from teak decking altogether.

"Teak is no longer an option anywhere in our range …[and] I believe we are the only ones to do this," says Nicolas Lapp, the company's co-founder and chief technical officer.

The decision, he says, was driven both by the difficulty of sourcing high quality plantation teak and the company's push for greater sustainability.

When you buy plantation teaks, you have a lot of wood that's just not usable, says Lapp.

After testing alternatives to teak, the company now offers two thermally-modified woods – in which a different natural wood is enhanced through heat to resemble teak – though it is not divulging publicly yet which those products are.

Meanwhile, some small boat models use a recyclable synthetic deck.

The thermally modified woods not only match teak's visual appeal but are easier to clean, and offer better thermal performance – staying cooler in the sun and insulating the cabins below, reducing the need for air conditioning, notes Lapp.

One newer, thermally-modified wood product on the market is Tesumo, launched by a company of the same name in late 2021.

The operation is small, but business is booming, says Arne Petersen, its managing director, adding it is working to increase output.

There have been some examples in the past of thermally-modified wood which haven't been successful which can cloud perceptions of newer materials, but Tesumo is a viable alternative, Petersen argues.

The product, made in Germany, emerged from a research project involving the University of Göttingen and Lürssen shipyard – one of the world's most prestigious yacht builders – after it struggled to find a good natural alternative to old-growth teak.

It starts with a fast-growing undisclosed African hardwood which is heat-treated and then further processed, including with resin impregnation.

High-profile installations so far include one of the helipads on the Lürssen-built superyacht Dragonfly, reportedly owned by Google co-founder Sergey Bryn, and the complete deck of Boardwalk, another Lürssen-built superyacht linked to US businessman Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team.

Synthetic alternatives, including plastics, are also evolving. Among the earliest was Flexiteek, a UK-made PVC teak substitute introduced in 2000 and which is widely regarded as the market leader in its category.

In late 2024, the company launched its third-generation product.

It is easier to clean than real teak, retains its colour as teak greys over time, and has improved thermal performance compared to earlier versions says Steve Moore, the company's marketing manager.

A different approach still is making better use of real teak.

Laminated teak is an engineered solution in which plantation-grown teak, that would normally be rejected for high-end decking, is thinly sliced and glued together to form a strong, stable material.

"You are kind of tricking the eye…[and in the process] using far more of the log," says Richard Strauss, CEO of Florida-based Teak Decking Systems.

The company fits decks using either plantation teak mostly sourced from India, or a small handful of alternatives it has had good success with. The laminated wood product it uses, Green Teak, comes from Thailand.

Meanwhile old habits die hard. Strauss notes that plantation teak is still the most popular among his customers.

Lapp of Sunreef says what's really needed is a wider culture shift away from teak altogether.

Customers typically start with wanting teak until they learn the problem and that alternatives can offer benefits.

"Then we show them… and they realise they can't tell the difference," says Lapp.

However, small UK family yacht building business Jeremy Rogers is sticking with teak for now – sourced from older government-managed plantations in Java that it is confident are authentic and harvested sustainably.

The firm's past experiments with alternatives mostly fell short, says Jessie Rogers.

"The problem for the alternatives is there is nothing quite like real teak," she says.