TBT Antifouling - Morally Reprehensible ?

[Blue Stocking]

Hummingway,

Have "coppered" the bottom of a number of Royal Navy 52 1/2 ft pinnaces in the 60's. Not fun to mallet and tack 4 x 4 sheets around compound curves. Still painted them with A/F paint.
Who is old enough to remember Woolsey Copper as a product name, 700 Red and 701 Brown IIRC.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

Somebody please invent a better way

How about using the aura from Crystals?

Seems like a ready market

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by swagman

... One 300 foot super tanker has a 35,000 square metre bottom. A 30 foot yacht has 30. The tanker is OK. The yottie banned. Can some one work that out for me? ...

I can’t work out where you get the idea that yachts are targeted, whereas commercial tankers are not.

I thought that the International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-Fouling Systems on Ships (AFS Convention) applies to all ships.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by bljones

... *Puts on belligerent dickhead hat*

Seems to me that occcasionally scrubbing the hull is just part of the cost of cruising- nautical lawnmowing. if that task is too onerous for some of you, ... Fastbttms [is] making money on sailors too lazy or self-important to dive on their own hulls, just as landscapers make money on people too lazy to mow their own lawns. *removes belligerent dickhead hat*

I love it. I live off this laziness. I scrape barnacles and cut grass. Ka-ching!

[hellosailor]

And I say ban all bottom paint and start hiring illegal immigrants. Fifty of 'em to manually haul the boat, clean and polish the bottom, and relaunch the boat twice a week, every week.

Solve the bottom paint and unemployment all in one swoop.


Ecology is a fine concept, but when I was a kid and bears and wolves were locally hunted to extermination, it was easy to go camping without "bearproof" containers. The flip side of ecology is that you ARE back on the menu.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

The flip side of ecology is that you ARE back on the menu.

I'm fine with that as long as no one starts painting my bottom.

[s/v 'Faith']

Originally Posted by hellosailor

And I say ban all bottom paint and start hiring illegal immigrants. Fifty of 'em to manually haul the boat, clean and polish the bottom, and relaunch the boat twice a week, every week.

Solve the bottom paint and unemployment all in one swoop.


Ecology is a fine concept, but when I was a kid and bears and wolves were locally hunted to extermination, it was easy to go camping without "bearproof" containers. The flip side of ecology is that you ARE back on the menu.

Or we could just let the government take care of it for us.

[gettinthere]

lets see, tbt is cheap and works well but pollutes; so it's banned.
the newest crop of bottom paint is expensive, works fairly poor and still pollutes via bottom scrubbing, but it's still OK.

If we're going to stop polluting, we need to stop polluting. Time to haul your boats weekly, all you rich yachties. Or stop whining


"I pollute less than you do so I am morally superior to you" is what I heard from these last 8 pages.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by gettinthere

the newest crop of bottom paint... pollutes via bottom scrubbing, but it's still OK.

Let's be clear- anti fouling paint leaches out its toxin 24/7/365, whether it is cleaned or not. That's how it works.

[gettinthere]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Let's be clear- anti fouling paint leaches out its toxin 24/7/365, whether it is cleaned or not. That's how it works.

well, that's even worse. It should be banned

Scrubbing the bottom does accelerate the rate of pollution, no?

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by gettinthere

h
well, that's even worse. It should be banned out

Scrubbing the bottom does accelerate the rate of pollution, no?

In-water hull cleaning does contribute, yes. But a gallon of anti fouling paint only has so much copper in it and all of it will eventually leach out into the water, scrubbing or no.

[Wand]

Originally Posted by VirtualVagabond

I'm delighted that all the little fishes are coming back into the bays, truly, and if banning TBT on small leisure craft was the reason I'll go along with it. It is far more likely that control of water pollution and industrial runoff/dumping is the real reason. The Thames in England is a shinning example of the results of these controls. Until the TBT is gone from all the commercial and naval and government vessels, I refuse to be the victim of a token gesture.

I think the point you've made but don't want to acknowledge ($ maybe?) is that every little bit helps; it could well be 90% because of runoff controls etc but 10% still matters. You might also want to remember that it's easier to call for others to do the right thing if you're already doing it yourself. Besides, warm and fuzzy is kinda nice.

[SimonV]

Well Gas/petrol works in your car, but its bad for the inviroment. Water is good for the inviroment but does not work in your cars engine so the powers at be want you to use water and for youto push your car every where so don't be lasy.

[Blue Crab]

No bottom paint allowed would change the way we boat. Essentially, it would force all but the very richest to take care their own boats. How's that for a concept? Boat prices would plummet as yuppies bailed out of that new Hunter 92 they were afraid of moving out of the slip anyway, marinas would empty. So long We$t Marine, hello mom and pop online. So long BoatUS. Sailors with big boats would start thinking smaller. Soon there would be just the hardy/hearty sailors left: men and women who can take of themselves and their vessels. Yeah yeah, I know. This kind of thinking AND $3.50 will get you a beer at the bar. That's where this is coming from. Any one have $3.50 I can hold til tommorrow? Hold it. Make it $7.00

[Wand]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

In Southern California, the numbers are even more dramatic, as virtually all boats are cleaned a minimum of 12-15 times per year.

12-15 times pa! Surely this is a misprint. For race boats I understand but cruising vessels (90% of any marina) don't need to be cleaned more that once or twice a year. And that's for wood boats - plastic cruisers wouldn't need even that. A bit of growth below doesn't do any harm so there's no need for non-racers to be fastidiuous about it. As for speed, most cruisers I see would lose more on sail trim than bottom fouling.

So if that much scrubbing is going on in marinas over there, two things: one, boat owners have been sold a pup by bottom scrubbers; and two, bottom scrubbing must be a significant contributor to the accelerated release of anti-fouling toxins.

Surely an annual slipping for a clean and antifoul, with the waste safely removed, could be no more costly than a monthly clean in the pond - and be better for the little fishes.