The Bottom Job from Hell

[skipgundlach]

I'm posting this due to another's story a little earlier, so you can disregard the thread drift part

I did a massive bottom job. You can see our bottom job work here:
Pictures: Flying Pig Refit 2011-2012/Bottom Job

At the risk of thread drift, drying out blisters is not a matter of
exposure or heat or barns or the usual. Blisters are a product of
uncatalyzed water soluble material (UWSM). Add water and they expand
slightly. Any boat built of polyester resin (most until relatively
recently) will have some, if not a lot.

Until that's gone (not merely dried out), you'll have the risk of
repetition, even under barrier coats, as ours were after a PO had
peeled and barrier coated.

The solution (pardon the expression) is to wash it out - water, under
pressure, preferably, rinse, repeat, grinding all non-laminated areas
away as you go, until you get no more weepage. THEN you can repair and
fair. We saturated the hull with a hose one day, and pressure washed
it the next. Any time we saw tell-tale weeps, we ground the underlying
lamination voids out. After we'd had several repetitions of no-weep,
we brought in a steam pressure washer; that showed two TINY places,
after chasing which, we considered ourselves finished.

Following our repair, we used an epoxy-based fairing compound capable
of going to a full inch without sagging; we didn't ever allow more
than a maximum of about 1/4 inch. The rest we built up with new glass
and West System epoxy.

This is the fairing compound we used. It comes in one and two gallon
pails (mix batches, total 2/4 gallons):
http://www.axson-technologies.com/si...0UltraFair.pdf

An example at retail:
https://www.merrittsupply.com/produc...ltra-fair-kit/

We used cheap thin plastic cutting sheets (like a cutting board but
very thin) to mix on, and then washed them with acetone, ditto
application tools. Several hours to green, but a full day made it like
concrete, despite the expected full cure being several days. Best to
do your rough sanding when it's firm enough that you can't ding it
with your fingernail but not any more than a full day out unless you
want a great deal more work than you could have had earlier.

I learned about Sherwin Williams marine coatings from a paint pro
(boat and airplane paints) in the same yard; he used them on his boat.
They make a great tropical-waters ablative (tested in Key Biscayne),
in two mixes, as well as barrier coat, to milspec levels. Talking with
their head tech told me that there is such a thing as too much barrier
coat; I no longer recall the number, but there is a specific mil
thickness they recommend not exceeding - get a mil gauge to see how
deep any coat is as it's applied. I think we used 4 or 5 coats, in
differing colors, to alert us to any damage as well as when we ran out
of bottom paint. First several BCs were red, and final gray; first AF
black, top red...

You put on the first coat of AF as the BC topcoat gets 'tacky' - a
very limited window. That's why you'll see pix of black over gray
nearly simultaneously:

You can see the paint (barrier coat and bottom paint) portion of our
work here:
Pictures: Flying Pig Refit 2011-2012/Bottom Job/4 - Barrier and Bottom Coats

We launched in late January 2013, and the boat has never been further
north than the fecund waters of the Charleston City Marina, mostly
being in the tremendously foul ICW at Vero Beach FL or in the Bahamas.

In that 6.2 or so years, it's been scraped irregularly, and, when I'm
in the Bahamas, scrubbed (ground on a falling tide, put on lots of
weights and use a hookah to breath while I take a deck brush to the
hull) occasionally.

This last trip back - after being in the Bahamas for over 2 months
without ever scrubbing - from Green Turtle Cay to Vero - took ALL the
growth off.

We are starting to show the next color down in many places; we used 2
coats everywhere and 3 or more coats at the waterline and hard points,
including the entirety of the bow-to-tip-of-rudder bottom-most line.

Based on our usage, we probably will have to pull the boat sometime
before it actually needs it, to attend to something else important,
but our FIRST coat isn't gone at close to 5 years. However, a
suggestion my buddy made, while wonderful initially, has not held up
well at all: Do the reveal stripe in brilliant white Pettit Vivid.
Indeed, it cleaned readily - but most of it in many areas is now gone,
leaving our fairing compound exposed where it happened to be, or
gelcoat, where there hadn't been damages needing attention. I think
I'd do it again, but with massive numbers of layers, as it ablates TOO
easily. Back to Sherwin-Williams...

They make two types of ablative paint. My buddy, because they didn't
have my type in stock, used the harder (presumed - designed for boats
over 10 knots rarely at rest) ablative; it still gives great service.
We use the softer ablative, designed for our type of use - under 10
knots, and frequently at rest.

Here are the relevant links for both types of bottom paint. Spec is
2-3 years, and easily-brushed slime is typical after 18 months per
their info, but we’ve gotten much longer from ours.

Copper Bottom Anti-Fouling Paint #45 - Protective & Marine – what we
have, available in 4 colors - I don’t recall now whether I had to go
to FTL for it, but I THINK they inter-office shipped it to the local
S-W shop, as it wasn't in stock in the FTL store, and was ordered for
us.

Seaguard Ablative Anti-Fouling Coating - Protective & Marine – what my
buddy I told you about has, and he’s happy; it’s more likely to be in
stock, though you might have to go to some major marine area to get
it.

In either event, of course, you'll more likely find it in marine
areas, but it could be shipped anywhere. Ours was $85/gallon in
5-gallon buckets in late 2012. I have no idea how much it will be
today, but we were on the order of a third to a quarter of "marine"
products that most folks use. The only improvement I could think of
would be tin

http://protective.sherwin-williams.c...3Aproduct-6925
– ours
Or maybe??
https://www.paintdocs.com/docs/webPD...&prodno=N51B45

http://protective.sherwin-williams.c...3Aproduct-6941
– buddy’s
Or maybe??
https://www.paintdocs.com/docs/webPD...prodno=P30BQ12

They also made our barrier coat;
https://protective.sherwin-williams....3Aproduct-6939

Our prior bottom paint had been the very best West had to offer; we
got much less time from it, at massively more cost.

According to my paint pro, the US Navy and Coast Guard use it; I
certainly have been pleased.

YMMV, but at that price, and if you haul regularly, it's worth a shot.

FWIW, in the godawful areas of St. Marys GA, cleaning was a matter of
using a wide drywall taping knife (very wide spatula) and running
stripes down the hull at next to no effort. If we'd been sailing, they
might have even just ablated off, but we spent an entire summer at a
dock there (those docks are now gone courtesy of Irma). We have found
no circumstances of hard growth that would not flake right off...

L8R

Skip
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[Tim_Pearson_303]

Excellent information. Thank you!

[MV Wanderlust]

Thanks for the detailed, step-by-step description and the links.

[svtrio]

Skip,

I just bought the Seaguard 45 in Fort Pierce early this month. The rep (your contact) and the local SW associates said the paint remains effective for years and the local fishermen swear by it.

It is currently available only in black. SW rep said formulation/production problems didn’t meet regs and it might be a long time before that gets sorted out.

The paint is available in one gallon containers @ $100 each.

I’m up the Potomac River off Chesapeake Bay and will 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞
splash this year. Then we will finally get the boat home to Florida after years on the hard and too much work.

Home is on Hutchinson Island near the seal museum.

Knowing your propensity to research your projects, coupled with your firsthand experience with the 45 paint, it was a no brainer for me. Hard to beat local knowledge vs very broad array of paints.

Thanks for the head up.

Roger

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by svtrio

Skip,

I just bought the Seaguard 45 in Fort Pierce early this month. The rep (your contact) and the local SW associates said the paint remains effective for years and the local fishermen swear by it.

It is currently available only in black. SW rep said formulation/production problems didn’t meet regs and it might be a long time before that gets sorted out.

The paint is available in one gallon containers @ $100 each.

I’m up the Potomac River off Chesapeake Bay and will 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞
splash this year. Then we will finally get the boat home to Florida after years on the hard and too much work.

Home is on Hutchinson Island near the seal museum.

Knowing your propensity to research your projects, coupled with your firsthand experience with the 45 paint, it was a no brainer for me. Hard to beat local knowledge vs very broad array of paints.

Thanks for the head up.

Roger

Glad you found confirmation

Also glad that you were able to get it decanted into gallons, as they normally only come in 5 gallon pails or more (that being a commercial product for most buyers).

At that price, you could easily do a skinny job if you normally haul each season as many do in the less tropical areas; if you didn't like your experience, it hasn't cost you much.

But my guess would be that it's the last time you use anything else, as it is formulaically equal to the other copper based paints, but at a hugely smaller (is that an oxymoron?) price, AND, it lasts a LONG time.

Follow up with a post in a season or two telling of your experience...

[fstbttms]

As we all know (or should), anti fouling paint performance often varies from one region to another. I have yet to come across a Sherwin Williams anti fouling paint product that I would recommend to my customers here in the Bay Area. Every example I have experience with has been an inferior performer. But as stated, YMMV.