I did that. The Cetol came off easily with a heat gun and the beauty of the
oiled teak was magical. It was apparent within a couple weeks though that
more oil was needed. I then discovered the difference between doing trim
and big areas like decks. Maybe there are people skillful enough to keep
from dripping oil on non-skid while oiling numerous handrails and other trim
but I'm not one of them. The drips are invisible until a few days later
when they turn into black stains and are very difficult to remove. I gave
up re-oiling. Buy fall, even in Maine's short season and climate, the teak
was all black and ugly. BTW I used the oil considered best by the concensus
here.

I then went to Bristol Finish with which I have a love / hate relationship.
It's a commitment because I don't think there is any going back. I chose it
because my boys at that point thought of sailing as an activity where you
plant your sneakers on every piece of wood and twist back and forth as you
watch the boat sail. Yelling at them wasn't consistent with my goal of
getting them to enjoy it. The other reason for the choice is that you can
slap on six coats in a day, sand off the rough spots, and put on a careful
finish coat. That speedy build up is important working outside in our
climate and under the pressure of other spring commissioning tasks.

However, it loves to bubble and run. Your brush work must be impecable and
I've always been a poor painter. Touch the wet surface a second time with
the brush and you will get bubbles. If there is no wind or the wind is too
strong, you will get bubbles. Since you can't rebrush, there is no way I've
found to get it thin enough to not run on a vertical surface. You have to
be sure that the surface is cooler than the stuff in the can or you will get
bubbles. You will get bubbles if you do it perfectly. You will get runs if
you do it perfectly.

However, it is very durable. You can also patch worn spots without redoing
the whole surface. I've ended up with what looks like many coats of varnish
poorly applied. If you look at the boat, it looks great. People come
aboard and say, "Nice varnish work!". If a boat yard varnisher comes aboard
at a marina, he gags and turns away for a second. Like a lot of things on
a boat, you have to look critically and directly at the finish itself to see
the defects. Another reason for using it was that my teak was old and has
been scraped and refinished so many times that I can't afford to strip,
scrape, and sand much more. There are 1/8" high pads around the winches
where the coaming trim has been scraped down around them.

I'm not sure what I would do if starting over with another boat but this
stuff is worth considering if you are skillfull with a brush and not too
particular. It is used on some very expensive new yachts so there are ways
to do it right but their customer service was not able to explain them to me
on the phone. It's worth considering though. Probably looks better than
Cetol overall and doesn't need attention during the sailing season.

--
Roger Long