How Badly Do You Really Need Bottom Paint?

[Cheechako]

Yea, when I said every 2-3 weeks above, that would be if you want to keep up with it in southern waters. You'll be doing mostly the water line and the prop. In a real murky nutrient rich harbor... it will grow faster though! Bottom paint is really expensive as noted above, really not sure it's worth it anymore... if you can dive and clean it.

[Ex-Calif]

We have some of the worst conditions for growth that I have heard about. We used hard coating the first year and after 6 months were scrubbing every 6 weeks.

The second time we put Micron Extra a soft ablative. We chose blue because as a color it has a higher copper contect (couldn't bear red). After 9 months we started scrubbing every 8 weeks or so. At 15 months it is fouling after 4 weeks. We are painting now.

Most people around here have someone dive on their boat weekly but I don't know anyone getting 2 years on bottom paint.

If you are committed to diving on the boat I would still put an excellent finish on the bottom of the boat to start with.

[Mule]

Has anyone tried Coppercoat, a fine copper power impregnated in epoxy paint. Higher than hell pricewise, one thousand American Dollars, (10 boat bucks or Marine Dollars) for a 34 Mainship for sufficient quanity to cover as reccomended. They claim 10 years???? They are trying sell bottom paint too, so the 10 year claim?? I would dance and sing if 5 years turned out.

[off-the-grid]

Funny they don't mention this in any of those books about cruising and living aboard.

In the grand scheme of things that need to be done on a boat is scrubbing the bottom that big of a deal, especially if you're in the water every day anyway? And even more so for us cat owners with a shallow draft.

I'm seriously considering this. Even if you have to scrub it weekly, you don't need to do the entire hull in one shot. If you split it up, it's only a few minutes at the end of a few of your dives each week.

[gonesail]

with no paint you can get barnacle growth within 2 or 3 weeks that's really tough to scrape off. ask me how I know.

[SkiprJohn]

In the tropics a wood boat must have bottom paint to prevent worms from boring into the wood. If your boat is fiberglass and you are scraping it constantly there is always the chance of being too aggressive and scarring the gel coat or wearing it away. This lets water intrude. Even for fiberglass it is not good and can lead to water migration and blisters.
I would not put a boat in saltwater without bottom paint.
I don't know how many times you've aggressively cleaned the bottom of a 35ft hull but 4 times a year in my opinion is too many times. Takes a lot of air and effort.
Good luck in whatever way you choose but I'll bet you'll be buying some good bottom paint after the first year.
regards,

[David M]

Originally Posted by grunzster

So you're saying we should start a paint the whales campaign?

I think if it saves the whales some energy then that's a good thing! Do they make bottom paint in florescent orange so we could see them better?

[s/v Jedi]

If you want to go the scraping way (scrub as little as possible, scraping saves paint) you should look into the ultra-hard teflon based paints. They make the hull very slick and that's their only mode of protection. It also means that it is really easy to scrape off.

The Chinese paint is an ablative and possibly the best paint available. But it's not legal in the US and EU (that's why it works so well).

What we should do is invent the bottom-scrub robot for yachts. Much like the ones that clean the swimming pools (they climb the vertical walls).

ciao!
Nick.

[off-the-grid]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

What we should do is invent the bottom-scrub robot for yachts. Much like the ones that clean the swimming pools (they climb the vertical walls).

ciao!
Nick.

But if we do that, how am I going to make any money cleaning hulls, when work doesn't buy into my whole reduced hours, telecommute plan?

[motion30]

I s florida in the winter I had grass growing on the water line in three days. Look around the marinas do you see any bare bottoms?