Give your boat a birthday with U-Dek by Ultralon - here's how.
by Richard Gladwell 5 May 21:31 NZST
U-Dek by Ultralon - April 2026 © U-Dek
Looking to replace the surface on a deck or cockpit area, with a synthetic product but don't know where to start?
U-Dek by Ultralon is an excellent hard wearing, non-skid, easily cleaned decking product that can be installed on any boat, or surface.
The first step is to remove the old surface, be it teak that is beyond its useful life, a painted surface or similar.
Next templates have to be made for each of the U-Dek panels. There are two ways of doing this - as demonstrated in the videos below.
You can do it manually by creating a set of templates of the shapes you require, or you can engage professional help with the aid of a digital measuring and templating device. Instead of relying on lasers or optical scanning, the Prodim Proliner shown in the video uses a unique mechanical wire system to capture physical measurements and instantly translate them into digital CAD files.
The device features a rotating measuring head containing a retractable wire (typically reaching up to 15 meters). At the end of the wire is a specialized metal measuring pen.
The user physically touches the pen to the edges, corners, or curves of the object or space they need to measure. They can record single points or continuously trace lines.
"We can do a 3D drawing once we put the Proliner in position and tell it where it is located," explains Adam Wickes from U-Dek Custom. "It measures the distance, the angle, and the height of where the pen is and when we've got it where we want it, we create a point. The machine itself makes a DXF file, which we can then put into our CAD files and create drawings and designs to suit"
"It's pretty accurate. You can see the cockpit in the panels, it's as accurate as the person using it," he adds.
For more on U-Dek by Ultralon, and to see some impressive before and after comparisons on their website udek.com/nz