careening for bottom paint

[ovrmyhead]

Is this a really bad idea? I had no choice but to careen in puerto madero to fix a packing hose but I am considering it again now for bottom paint. The boat is in puerto vallarta and I think it would save me about a grand. No small chunk of the cruising kitty. She is a 36 foot union cutter, full keel.
Fire away!

[roverhi]

As long as you have a nice sand beach and the tidal excursion, shouldn't be a problem. That's how it was done for years before travellifts. My only question is do you have to rinse off the salt residue??? Might want to talk with the paint mfg about that.

[ovrmyhead]

Anybody out there know of any good spots near or south of pv to careen her?

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by ovrmyhead

Is this a really bad idea?

It ain't a very green idea, that's for sure. I don't know about Mexican boatyards, but there's a reason American yards have to jump through so many regulatory hoops.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

It ain't a very green idea, that's for sure...........

It might not be "green", but not for sure. I don't careen for bottom painting as I did regularly back in the 70's & 80's, but this is for two reasons. I'm not as young and ready for the long hard work and I'm not as limited with funds to pay the boatyard as I was forty years ago. Sure, I agree with fstbttms if the goal is to remove paint before application, but it is absolutely effective to do the same soft cleaning that fstbttms promotes as a prep when careened to add a new anti-fouling coat. We've always had full or 3/4 keels and we keep our rudder safe when careening. We also ensure that our initial leaning is always toward the shore at a sandy protected beach with a tidal range greater than our draft. We also choose the first of successively increasing tides. We did not always careen and those that believe that every new paint requires removal of old paint, can not careen for painting and be ecologically sound. We probably careened eight to ten times in the past without more than soft cleaning and with the renewal of active paint that gave us another season or two of clean bottoms for little cost. We also were not overly concerned with a fresh water rinse on the hull; however, we always did prepare with some fresh water rinsing before painting. During the twenty years that we occasionally careened I never noticed less quality in adherence or performance of my bottom paint. We, also, were careful always to leave our site as natural as it was at our arrival.

[capn_billl]

It will be a good hard days work to clean it, prep it, paint it, and hopefully the paint dries before the tide comes back in.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

It will be a good hard days work to clean it, prep it, paint it, and hopefully the paint dries before the tide comes back in.

I will admit that we never achieved good coverage or drying on the bottom of our keel, but it was well worth the savings. The work was hard and required staying up late or starting early & sleeping at a 33 degree angle aboard, but we usually worked several boats at a time and shared cooking out on the beach and good times.

[HappySeagull]

Is there enough tide in PV to dry out -isn't it only a meter or so drop?So,If you mean real careening on her side,you might be wanting the extreme version-hauling down the masthead to lift the keel!

But given there's enough tide to dry,careening is fine,-you do one side per tide.You don't need to scrub and wash if you don't want to be an enviro-crook.You just use a wide scraper(like a big putty knife,not the sharpened-blade varnish-ripper!-type and put a tarp under her to capture the copper sludge and dust for disposal.But first,Get the barnacles in one pass and the harder stuff on the next,so the fast first pass is really just stinky compost,the second is for enviro disposal.Rub her off with a sacrificial towel and whatever and maybe thin your paint a little.If you do careen,check for things that might shift at what might turn out to be an extreme angle of heel,if the beach is not a nicely sloped one.
Even if there's not enough tide to dry out,you can heel over and scrape most of it off to sail to a cheaper place.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

It will be a good hard days work to clean it, prep it, paint it, and hopefully the paint dries before the tide comes back in.

And the devil will get ya if you don't.
As stated in the old wooden ship days, except it was caulking, not paint.

[ragdoll]

Not a big deal, the more boats the better.

[Hudson Force]

I don't careen any more, but it's a viable option for those that are ready for the work, the savings and have the proper location and tidal range.



Here's an old photo of one of our careenings in 1975

[Ziggy]

I've seen boats careened against a bulkhead or pilings, but I have never seen one just lying down on the sand. Learned something new, I guess...

Also, I remember seeing an article in Good Old Boat ("A Low Tide Solution," November/December 2011) about improvising legs for a cutless bearing replacement.