Coppercoat after 6 months away

[sailorboy1]

Copper Coat threads always go the same way here. A user reports it did/didnt work for them. Other users join with more it did/didnt work stories to the point that it is so inconsistent that one can not make a product judgement. Fastbottom jumps in with his small cross section experience of the world and if the user had good results will say they basically are wrong. Thern he will turn the thread to TBT

Far as the TBT paint thread drift here:

I bet a LOT of boaters use it when they can get it or Seahawk wouldn't bother selling it. But those boaters are smart not to get themselves into one these threads.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

I hate to throw a wrench in this discussion but I see people dogging TBT on the one hand (I'm sure it's probably bad stuff) and then donning a halo while speaking fondly of copper based bottom paints.

Copper is toxic and deadly to marine organisms, especially invertebrates, crustacea, etc. It's typically considered the most problematic metal in marine environments. If you have a fish tank and you want to wipe out all the snails in it what do you use? Copper sulfate. Same with algae. Although it doesn't have as drastic an effect on fish, it generally interferes with the uptake of oxygen across gill tissue.

I'm definitely not an expert on bottom paints so I'm not sure what the most effective eco friendly paint would be. Maybe silicon foul release?

Eventually metallic AF paints will be going to the wayside due to their toxicity and environmental impact. We already see this in the US with manufacturers reducing the copper content of their paints.

Silicone paints are not manufactured to release silicone, but to prevent organisms from sticking to the surface. These slippery paints do hold some promise, but from some of the few examples so far they still allow soft growth to attach on slower vessels or ones that sit.

[Bycrick]

Let’s get real. Seven billion people are going to change their environment. As a group, they’re going to want to protect what they’ve got from things that damage their property. Homeowners want to poison termites. Farmers want to poison insects or invasive plants that damage their crops. The highway people want to spray herbicides along the highway to keep grass from growing because it’s cheaper and easier that sending in people to cut the grass. Using water to put out fires doesn’t work very well sometimes, so they use additives which aren’t good for the environment. Five cents worth of screws are packed in five cents worth of plastic because it’s cheaper or easier to manage shipping and inventory. Food is, with only rare exceptions, packaged in more-or-less polluting wrappings, only a tiny fraction of which is recyclable or biodegradable. The answer to gasoline powered vehicle pollution isn’t electric cars, it’s public transportation.

But almost nobody wants to sacrifice their safety, comfort or convenience or money for the "greater good." They want to tell other people what they should sacrifice.

So you have people who live in a house, and drive their SUV to the grocery store every day, and consume an average of thousands of pounds of plastic packaging every year, telling other people that they shouldn’t do X, or use Y because it’s "bad for the planet."

It’s easy to sit in SF or NY and advocate to make (for example) DDT illegal because it hurts pelicans. It’s a lot harder to make that case when your child has just died of dengue fever carried by mosquitoes.

All of these things are a trade off. Benefits for some, but at some cost to others. I get tired of the people who simply assume that they’ve got all the right answers and the "right" to enforce those answers on everybody else.

[Afrinus]

Wow, your entitled to your opinion of course, and as someone else said, I would defend your right to it ( I want that for myself too), but I don't think this is a political or moral issue.
It's just plain common sense to not sh!t on your doorstep.
I presume you like being in the water environment, I presume you probably like to even eat the critters that come out of this water..
Why the heck would you choose to poison this environment.
Just because some government days it's ok to do something, doesn't make it a good idea...
Glad you're not a fan of the US....hopefully you won't ever come here....we have enough knuckleheads already...

Originally Posted by Bycrick

My obligation as a citizen or visitor requires me to conform with the laws where I reside. If I don’t, then notwithstanding what 91 other counties think, the local authorities are likely to take a dim view of my behavior. I might choose to observe more stringent laws promulgated someplace else, but I’m under no obligation, legal or moral, to do so. And just because I don’t agree with someone’s political position, doesn’t mean I’m an evil person. You can try to save the world your way, but don’t try to tell me what I have to do to satisfy you.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by chasfgr

TBT is used by big ships...

For the umpteenth time- this is not true.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Q Xopa

Hmmm I think you are meaning to say the opposite to what I understand what you have written?

I think you like and think Coppercoat is more effective than most others?

Is this correct?

I value you opinion but I dont understand which side of the Coppercoat debate you are on from this post?

Not sure what is unclear. As I have said many times in this forum, I find Coppercoat to have lousy anti fouling performance and I wouldn’t wish it on an enemy.

[Bycrick]

A poster in another thread started a long discussion on "externalities." The idea that everybody wants to shove the costs and risks off on somebody else. Are you willing to forego using an antibiotic to save your life today, even though the use of antibiotics results in more resistant bacteria which may kill people in the future?

Are you willing to forego spaying Malathion over wide areas to kill the Medfly, as they did in California a few years back, knowing that if you don’t you’ll have massive losses to fruit and vegetable growers and consumers?

Massive use of herbicides will likely kill or injure farm workers. So should we ban them with the result that food production drops and more people might starve?

Would you poison termites to keep them from eating your house, knowing that it might also kill some beneficial insects and maybe people involved in the production and application of the insecticide?

Maybe I wouldn’t **** on my doorstep, but a whole lot of people aren’t a bit shy about shitting on their neighbors doorstep. It’s pervasive. "Flying is destroying the environment," say some. So you have news stories about "flights to nowhere." Or, "I’m driving across the country to protest pollution.." both from last week's news.
Or "rolling blackouts" in CA while they’re busy shutting down "polluting" power plants. Why? Because they can buy power from other places, thus externalizing the pollution problems.

There’s no free lunch. Questioning my "patriotism" isn’t going to change that. Assuming that you’ve got all the "right" answers is just arrogance. If you want to keep your first-world standard of living, somebody has to pay for it. You just want it to be somebody else.

[Q Xopa]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Not sure what is unclear. As I have said many times in this forum, I find Coppercoat to have lousy anti fouling performance and I wouldn’t wish it on an enemy.

Ah ok,

Sorry my mistake. Admittedly I havent read all your posts.

What threw me when you were advising the OP to keep his Coppercoat. Or atleast that's what I assumed when you said "please dont" get rid of it.

Ok so, maybe I still misunderstand your position, but just to be clear if I understand your position.
You dont like Coppercoat much, but better than others?

[fgd3]

No, he said it was worse than others.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

A poster in another thread started a long discussion on "externalities." The idea that everybody wants to shove the costs and risks off on somebody else. Are you willing to forego using an antibiotic to save your life today, even though the use of antibiotics results in more resistant bacteria which may kill people in the future?

Are you willing to forego spaying Malathion over wide areas to kill the Medfly, as they did in California a few years back, knowing that if you don’t you’ll have massive losses to fruit and vegetable growers and consumers?

Massive use of herbicides will likely kill or injure farm workers. So should we ban them with the result that food production drops and more people might starve?

Would you poison termites to keep them from eating your house, knowing that it might also kill some beneficial insects and maybe people involved in the production and application of the insecticide?

Maybe I wouldn’t **** on my doorstep, but a whole lot of people aren’t a bit shy about shitting on their neighbors doorstep. It’s pervasive. "Flying is destroying the environment," say some. So you have news stories about "flights to nowhere." Or, "I’m driving across the country to protest pollution.." both from last week's news.
Or "rolling blackouts" in CA while they’re busy shutting down "polluting" power plants. Why? Because they can buy power from other places, thus externalizing the pollution problems.

There’s no free lunch. Questioning my "patriotism" isn’t going to change that. Assuming that you’ve got all the "right" answers is just arrogance. If you want to keep your first-world standard of living, somebody has to pay for it. You just want it to be somebody else.

Bycrick, It's a little hard to follow you in this latest posting; are you making statements of your own or quoting someone else's statements?

But anyhow, the issues like wide spread uses of Malathion, massive use of herbicides, and poisoning termites (and use of TBT) have two sides, pro's and cons. Your apparent assumption that people would do all of these things because it benefits them rather than forgo them due to environmental concerns is probably projection on your part. I think most people look at science, the options and consequences, and accept decisions and rules made for the common good and the good of the environment.

I don't think that most people with first-world standards of living just want to push the problem elsewhere. I think most of us, sailors included, and maybe especially, know we have to make changes and accept that.

[BAD ORCA]

Originally Posted by SimonP

What we need is a suction cleaner for hulls similar to the ones used in swimming pools.
Switch it on whenever you're on a mooring and the hull will be clean by morning.
I wonder if such a thing exists?

S/V Delos is experimenting with ultrasound (sonic) anti foul on part of their boat. havn't been paying really close attention but he seemed to think its working on preventing hard growth on the hull in the area they are testing it.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Q Xopa

What threw me when you were advising the OP to keep his Coppercoat. Or atleast that's what I assumed when you said "please dont" get rid of it.

When the OP posted that he was considering switching to Sea Hawk Island 44, I replied, "Please don't", meaning, "Please don't use Island 44."

Originally Posted by Q Xopa

Ok so, maybe I still misunderstand your position, but just to be clear if I understand your position. You dont like Coppercoat much, but better than others?

Coppercoat is a crappy anti fouling coating, IMHO, because it leaches so little copper biocide. If anything good can be said about it, because it leaches so little, it doesn't pollute much. Island 44 is undoubtedly a terrific anti fouling paint but that's because it uses a horrible poison as its biocide.

I am not a fan of either product but for very different reasons.

[Valmika]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Two reasons:

2.- The entire Sea Hawk Paints executive team went to prison a few years ago for the federal crimes they committed against their customers and the government regarding their continued selling of tBt paint products after the U.S. government banned the sale, use and application of anti fouling paints containing tributyl tin.

So not only is using Island 44 morally and ecologically reprehensible, but doing so is helping the convicted felons who produce it to pay their bills.

So do their products still contain TBT if they went to jail for it?

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Bill O

Eventually metallic AF paints will be going to the wayside due to their toxicity and environmental impact. We already see this in the US with manufacturers reducing the copper content of their paints.

I don't hold to this train of thought. Yes, regulatory pressure has forced paint manufacturers (in some states) to reduce the amount of copper released into the water column per day (but not the amount of copper a paint can contain. Important distinction.) This caused the manufacturers to reformulate some products and to actually discover ways to make less copper be more effective. But I think that a blanket statement saying that copper-based anti fouling paints are going to go the way of the dodo is still premature. If anything, states (and nations) are beginning to walk back their anti-copper stances. Washington state is a prime example.

Originally Posted by Bill O

Silicone paints are not manufactured to release silicone, but to prevent organisms from sticking to the surface. These slippery paints do hold some promise, but from some of the few examples so far they still allow soft growth to attach on slower vessels or ones that sit.

Do not confuse silicone-based anti fouling paints with silicone foul release coatings. Apples and oranges.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Valmika

So do their products still contain TBT if they went to jail for it?

They didn't go to prison for producing tBt-based paints. That is not illegal and obviously there is an offshore market for it. They went to prison because they lied to the federal government about selling tBt-based paints in this country, because that IS illegal.