Barnacled soft-bottomed Zodiac

[Jim Cate]

Best way to deal with mussels is attack with some white wine, garlic, parsley and some assorted herbs... works every time!

Cheers,

Jim

[s/vfootloose]

I used muriatic acid like you use in swimming pools. Brush it on let it sit till it stops working rinse repeat. It will dissolve any growth but won't hurt your dingy. Scraping can very easily puncture your dingy either with what your scraping with or the sharp bits that come off

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Best way to deal with mussels is attack with some white wine, garlic, parsley and some assorted herbs... works every time!

Cheers,

Jim

i have a feeling there are some soft sponges there as well,so if i'm lucky i may get dinner and some bath toys out of the exercise

[Exile]

Originally Posted by simonmd

If you have a pressure washer, thats the best way IMHO. I had the same problem with my last boat, left the dingy tied to the bow instead of pulling her out all the time and in just over a month it was covered!

The jet wash got all the barnicles off but the vinyl still had marks where they had been which I couldn't remove. At least there is no risk of scratching or even puncturing the dingy with water power.

Actually, I did a lot of damage to my Achilles hypalon dinghy using a pressure washer. It got the barnacles off, but created a bunch of tiny holes in the process
that I'm still dealing with.

[hellosailor]

A lot of acids dissolve calcium. Some less agressive products like "CLR" are also sold to remove calcium buildups in showers and plumbing. You might try one of those and giving it time to work, before hitting the dink with stronger acids.

[svHyLyte]

Originally Posted by BlueWaterSail

Hello all, I left the dinghy in the water alongside too long and barnacles took hold. Took it out, scraped, but still have lots of very sharp remains stuck to the underside.

Any advice on how to remove these effectively with minimum damage to the vinyl (and my fingers)?

Thanks, BWS

I assume you can obtain either Barnacle Buster or Rydlyme in Hawaii. In either case, upend your dighy on the hard, cover the bottom with old towels or rags, thoroughly saturate the rags/towels with a solution of Barnacle Buster or Rydlyme--i.e.sopping wet!--and completely cover/seal the rags/towels with black plastic such as split 45 gallon trash can liners. Allow these to sit for several hours or, ideally, overnight. It may take several soakings with the solution but the barnacles will disolve without any damage to the fabric. (Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.)

EWIW...

[zeehag]

i only used a plastic scraper and did it on the beach --didnt take much and was clean for another month. barnies dont form that fast--should keep dink on deck or elevated at night.