Antifouling Airmar DST810?

[SailingHarmonie]

I have a separate depth transducer from the speed and temperature. A new depth transducer gets a light coating of epoxy, and then just gets regular bottom paint. I never pull it for cleaning, just clean with the boats bottom. Stays as clean as the boat.

Putting the water based paint on the paddlewheel defiantly maked a difference for me in fouling rate, but it only lasts about 2 or 3 months. No a huge deal to apply a bit more. My experiment that proved its effectiveness was to paint half the face of my blanking plug and leave it in for a month at the dock. A clear difference.

A layer or two (or ten) of paint will not affect the soundings, as long as the solvents in the paint do not damage the urethane acoustic lens. After all, these sounders are perfectly capable of transmitting and receiving their signals through an inch of solid fiberglass...

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by SailingHarmonie

I have a separate depth transducer from the speed and temperature. A new depth transducer gets a light coating of epoxy, and then just gets regular bottom paint. I never pull it for cleaning, just clean with the boats bottom. Stays as clean as the boat.

Putting the water based paint on the paddlewheel defiantly maked a difference for me in fouling rate, but it only lasts about 2 or 3 months. No a huge deal to apply a bit more. My experiment that proved its effectiveness was to paint half the face of my blanking plug and leave it in for a month at the dock. A clear difference.

A layer or two (or ten) of paint will not affect the soundings, as long as the solvents in the paint do not damage the urethane acoustic lens. After all, these sounders are perfectly capable of transmitting and receiving their signals through an inch of solid fiberglass...

Ah, that can explain it. I never figured it requires new antifouling every other month…

[rslifkin]

The water based paint definitely seems to wear fast. After 7 months of use and a power wash at haulout, my depth transducer is always bare. It has never fouled enough to affect the depth reading though. I put a few extra coats on it this year to see if it still has any paint left or if I should look into different paint this winter.

[Ziggy]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

The water based paint definitely seems to wear fast. After 7 months of use and a power wash at haulout, my depth transducer is always bare. It has never fouled enough to affect the depth reading though. I put a few extra coats on it this year to see if it still has any paint left or if I should look into different paint this winter.

I don't know if the depth sensitivity is affected by growth (my depth transducer is inside the hull) but the spinning impeller knotmeter definitely does get affected. Many boats don't have one, since you can get your speed relative to the bottom from GPS, but it does give you water speed and thus a way to measure drift and set. The MDR water based transducer paint is cheap enough to paint it at every haulout. Even if it doesn't make much difference, it takes less effort than posting questions on cruisers forum and sorting though all the responses.