[QUOTE=Richard_jersey;380074. . . Perhaps this will silence all the snake oil comments, I await in anticipation and the hope of ending the annual ritual.[/QUOTE]
Testing on a couple of "dinghies" with either wooden construction or the usual 0.125 or less inch thick
fiberglass or polypropylene or pvc
hull is as far from a valid test as you can get for how something would
work on a full size FRG or other type
hull, boat. Normal FRG boats range from 3/8" to 3/4" inch or more thick hulls made with anything from polyester resin to vinylester to whatever high tech or low tech hull
layup. Those tests will have virtual no correspondence to reality and then add in the aforementioned totally different sea-life and
water temperature/salinity conditions of Poole Harbor versus
Antigua,
Miami,
New York,
Florida,
Sydney, Marseille and the hundreds of other places.
- - The normal process of fouling on a boat bottom starts with a slime growing on the surface of the hull followed by thicker algae and even what we call in the
Caribbean "sea moss" - a fine hair like sea plant. These growths isolate the anti-foulant paint's active ingredient from being released and then the
barnacles, proto-coral and other flora and fauna of the oceans can take up residence on your boat's hull.
- - Using a mechanical "vibration" device be it low-freq or ultra-sound will be dampened to nothing by the layers of growth and also by the shear mass of the thickness and composition of a FRG,
wood, or metal within a few cm of the
transducer location. Witness the growth that covers your
depth sounder transducer which is also a similar type technology.
- - These same type devices are
sold as mosquito repelling, and a hundred other theoretically possible applications. Just like the "magnet" to keep algae out of your
diesel fuel, they sound great but do nothing in reality except help keep your wallet from getting too heavy.
- - Practical real life proof is that
commercial ships, mega-yachts,
cruise ships, etc. do not use any of these types of "wonder-cures." If they did
work, the devices would be mass marketed to the "big guys" who have a real economic reason to use them.