Colour of Antifoul - Does it Matter ?

[Lagoon4us]

The question is two fold:-

1) I've noticed that in clean, hot, tropical water that white antifoul performed better than red, black or blue. Has anyone noticed more or less growth on different colour antifouls?

2) Quintrex boats here in Australia painted the bottoms of there trailable fishing boats a brown epoxy, their reasoning was fish in muddy estuaries could not see the boat hence they didn't scare away. So the question is.. Should we paint white or maybe blue?
The thinking is from below we blend into the waters surface and for all intents and purposes we are not visible...Would this be a desired thing??? (whales etc)

Cheers Frank

[rusky]

Well, each time I have had black antifoul, we have been on a constant whale watch. One instance in particular was very scary. So, just my experience - never, never again with the black. [Oh. it was the wattyl and worked great in the tropics]

[SaucySailoress]

Interesting question, and not one I have ever heard of before. I think growth justs grows... although the colour may make a difference to how warm your hull gets in certain climates - but I doubt very much it makes a difference under water!

We use three colours of antifoul on all our boats which are kept in water... the yacht and the dive boats. We use alternate layers of blue and black so we can see how the antifoul is wearing when we scrape it - obviously more layers are needed at the front of the hull.

On all our boats, the second layer of antifoul is always red. That way, we have plenty of notification of when we need to lift the boats for the next paint job. This lot has been on our yacht since we relaunched her about five years ago, and the red is just showing through on the front now.

[fstbttms]

Darker colors tend to have a higher copper content, as copper tints the paint.

That being said; I have never noticed any difference in anti fouling performance from one color to the next, for a given product line.

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by SaucySailoress

Interesting question, and not one I have ever heard of before. I think growth justs grows... although the colour may make a difference to how warm your hull gets in certain climates - but I doubt very much it makes a difference under water!

We use three colours of antifoul on all our boats which are kept in water... the yacht and the dive boats. We use alternate layers of blue and black so we can see how the antifoul is wearing when we scrape it - obviously more layers are needed at the front of the hull.

On all our boats, the second layer of antifoul is always red. That way, we have plenty of notification of when we need to lift the boats for the next paint job. This lot has been on our yacht since we relaunched her about five years ago, and the red is just showing through on the front now.

Years ago we had a fishing dory on a permanent mooring in Hardy Lagoon off the Whitsunday's, the dory was called LOLLIPOP and the topsides painted accordingly.
For fun we extended the colours to include the antifoul using International Racing (HARD) after 6 months i noticed on a trip that there was far less growth on the white. Water was clean warm etc.....
Cheers Frank.

[Spirit28]

White anti-foul really looks nice on my boat - well as white as white gets these days now that TBT is a no no.... But the slime even after a few weeks makes the boat look pretty unloved.

My bottom is now black & disguises the slime pretty well..

Different colour layers are a good idea to gauge when its time to re paint, especially with the softer self polishing anti-fouls as mentioned previously.

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by rusky

Well, each time I have had black antifoul, we have been on a constant whale watch. One instance in particular was very scary. So, just my experience - never, never again with the black. [Oh. it was the wattyl and worked great in the tropics]

+1 on the whales. It's nice when they come close, but not TOO close

We found the same with grey antifoul.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Spirit28

My bottom is now black & disguises the slime pretty well..

.

I looked away while reading the thread, kind of forgot about the topic, and when I looked back my eye landed on this line.

[S/V Alchemy]

Sailing is a filthy business. It starts with getting blown offshore with your sheets in the wind and a fouled anchor and goes downhill from there.

[justwaiting]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

Sailing is a filthy business. It starts with getting blown offshore with your sheets in the wind and a fouled anchor and goes downhill from there.

Sush, leave don to think about the "black slime ..."
you said offshore, that enough to give a sailor with a hunter nightmare, leave him to his dreams

[justwaiting]

Originally Posted by Katiusha

+1 on the whales. It's nice when they come close, but not TOO close

We found the same with grey antifoul.

If i may ask what colour do you use?

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by justwaiting

If i may ask what colour do you use?

We found that black or grey somehow make whales come a lot closer than with blue or white.

Now we are back to black (was on sale), but being in the Med, there's nothing that swims towards you except for some villagers eager to trade. I don't think they care about the colour of our bottom.

[Blue Crab]

I hadn't considered the whale watch.

For you real cross the oceans sailors, does that make red the better/best color?

[Bash]

With a red or black bottom I found it harder to see which parts of the hull I'd already cleaned. Not so difficult with blue.

[keepondancin]

I would like to hear more whale stories. In Trinidad a bunch of years ago, we did a complete bottom job, including epoxy. Used red for the indicator color, then black as the finish. As happens in a lot of cruising communities, many were experts with absolute knowledge, and only a few with opinions, all unsolicited. We were warned that we would be sunk, with out a doubt, by amourous whales. A Captain has to make his own decision; stayed with black. Only saw a couple of whales around Bequia, none had any interest in the boat. For almost 10 years in the Caribbean we were never assaulted by any type of marine mammels.