1974 Winner Cobra -- Flooring

HI folks:

We have a 1974 Winner Cobra runabout -- its been well loved over the years and needs some work. among other things, the yellow outdoor carpet inside it is falling apart -- badly -- underneath it appears to be a grey textured plastic / rubber compound of some sort that appears to be applied directly to the decking material. Im wondering if that could be (at least for a while) used as the flooring without the carpet. the carpet is just simply a MESS. Replacement of the carpet is the long term goal, but right now financially is not feasible, so im wondering if we can pull the old nasty carpet and get by for a couple years till money eases up and we can re-carpet (and replace the seats)

Thanks
TIM

quick reply to attach a couple picsAttachment 491935Attachment 491936

It's hard to tell from your pictures what you are working with so let's set up some parameters. No water trapped between whatever you're walking and the decking, also no water below decks. I doubt the underside of the decking on a Winner that age is glassed. Carpet causes more decks to rot than not so pulling it up is no harm in itself. They make a open tile decking that interlocks, I just saw it on sale, I think Vevor has it on sale right now. You can clean all the glue off your deck, roll a couple of coats of a good marine paint down, let that dry 30 days, then put the tile decking over the top. The stuff I'm taking about is a open tile, will not trap any water.