Hull Cleaners Thrown Under The Bus

[transmitterdan]

I'm having a hard time figuring out how this study hurts hull cleaning businesses. The one thing I can think of is that regulators believe that by reducing copper in paint that it reduces copper released into the environment. But if reducing copper increases the number of hull cleanings per year then more copper is released as a result. So maybe paint companies think that more copper in paint will reduce cleanings and thus copper released by scrubbing. In that case boat owners win and cleaners lose. I don't for a minute believe any regulators will be swayed by the study in that regard.

[avb3]

Any expirence yet with paints like Hydrocoat? It is apparently copper free but ablative.

I wonder how effective it is in the real world .

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

E X A C T L Y!
Is it worse or better for organisms than the tons of oil washed into the bay from parking lots and streets?
I'm an enironmentalist at heart, but I just dont get the powers that be... when they pick on little things and ignore the big things.

As I am. The problem with things like oil from parking lots is it is generated from thousands and thousands of cars, non-point source pollution. These are big contributors to pollution cumulatively but hard to deal with but also easy political targets. Makes a nice sound bites for the politicians.

The big things, or point source are easier targets to actually deal with and in many cases have been improved (but yes there's still a LONG way to go).

Originally Posted by Cheechako

The millions of tons of raw sewage let into the water by municipalities because "the rainfall exceeded what we could handle in the sewer plant" (does anyone get how rainfall and the sewer plant are related?).

This one really gets me as well. A classic case of going after the easy targets IE the "rich" boat owners getting fined for having an unlocked discharge valve while municipalities dump millions of gallons of raw sewage directly into the rivers, bays and oceans. Before anyone jumps on me, I'm not advocating pumping your head into the local water but the collective waste of all the boaters in a state is a fraction of what the cities dump on a regular basis.

The problem is that storm water and sewage systems are combined, so a big rain overwhelms the capacity of the system. Add the bad economy, bankrupt municipalities that can't afford to maintain their existing system, much less upgrade and here we are.

Originally Posted by Cheechako

How about the bilges of large tankers spreading animals that destroy local ecosystems?

Which they are cracking down in the US but still lots of commercial vessels still do it when they can get away with it.

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Heck... I've been on airplanes where when you land in acountry, a person walks down the aisle before you deboard and sprays some sort of insecticide all over! (Samoa!)

Used to do that when I flew to some of the Caribbean islands. I always hated that part, especially since I'm sure it did nothing at all to get rid of any bugs that might have been hitchhiking on the plane.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

So I am assuming the gubberment will regulate the amount of hull cleaning a year. I believe in a former thread you may have suggested a cleaning every 2 months (correct me if I'm wrong). So how many hull cleanings a year would be allowed?

Who knows? Reducing hull cleaning frequencies is simply one possibility, and a tough one to enforce, too boot. Maybe the state would put a moratorium on hull cleaning, say for two years. That would be easy to enforce. Stand back and see if the copper numbers go down. Of course, most dive services would go out of business if that happened. The bottom line is we don't know what will happen.

BTW- you are correct that I have stated that bi-monthly cleanings are optimum, for San Francisco Bay. In Southern California, cleanings need to be done every 3-4 weeks.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

BTW- you are correct that I have stated that bi-monthly cleanings are optimum, for San Francisco Bay. In Southern California, cleanings need to be done every 3-4 weeks.

So what is it about SF Bay that makes fouling such a problem? The freshwater and nutrients coming in from the rivers that feed the bay? Something else?

What about away from the main bay like up the Delta?

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I'm having a hard time figuring out how this study hurts hull cleaning businesses. The one thing I can think of is that regulators believe that by reducing copper in paint that it reduces copper released into the environment. But if reducing copper increases the number of hull cleanings per year then more copper is released as a result. So maybe paint companies think that more copper in paint will reduce cleanings and thus copper released by scrubbing. In that case boat owners win and cleaners lose. I don't for a minute believe any regulators will be swayed by the study in that regard.

The paint companies and the state are in business together. That's how this study came about in the first place. The paint manufacturers pay the state to register the products they want to sell. The Department of Pesticide Regulation (the state agency that determines what can be used in anti fouling paint) doesn't want to lose that revenue, so they work hand-in-hand with the paint companies. I once participated in a round-table discussion with a state senator's staff, paint company scientists, lobbyists for various concerns and other stakeholders. At first, I literally could not tell who worked for the senator and who was a paint industry lobbyist. I thought they were all part of the senator's staff. That's how closely these people work together.

The people who actually create water quality policy (at the state, regional or local level) really have no idea how anti fouling paint works and whether or not hull cleaning is a necessary maintenance task. So they rely on industry experts to educate them. But that rarely includes experts from the hull cleaning industry. It is my opinion that the paint manufacturers want to show that copper paint is still necessary to reduce fouling, but in-water hull cleaning is too polluting to be allowed to continue as it currently does.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by skipmac

So what is it about SF Bay that makes fouling such a problem? The freshwater and nutrients coming in from the rivers that feed the bay? Something else?

The fouling in the Bay Area is not any more of a problem than any other marine location with similar characteristics. We experience moderate to high fouling, probably quite typical for a marine estuary (and the Bay is salty, not fresh) with water temps in the 50°-70° range and plenty of sunlight.

Originally Posted by skipmac

What about away from the main bay like up the Delta?

Freshwater or brackish environments do not experience high fouling rates. Up in the Delta, hull cleaning isn't really even a "thing". Just not particularly necessary.

[fstbttms]

Since most of you have never cleaned a boat bottom underwater and there seems to be some misconception about what it actually entails, have a look at this video which depicts a hull cleaner using Best Management Practices to clean a well maintained hull. I think you'll agree it is a fairly gentle process removing very little anti fouling paint:

Forum Version Hull Cleaning Hunter 41 Part 1 1.6.11.MP4 - YouTube

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

The fouling in the Bay Area is not any more of a problem than any other marine location with similar characteristics. We experience moderate to high fouling, probably quite typical for a marine estuary (and the Bay is salty, not fresh) with water temps in the 50°-70° range and plenty of sunlight.

I may be from Florida but I am aware that SF Bay is salt water. My point was that there is significant fresh water entering the bay from several rivers that will result in a lower salinity in parts of the bay compared to pure sea water and potentially bringing significant nutrient loads from the big agriculture inland.

I have kept boats in harbors with similar sunshine and temps and places with warmer temps that I think encourage growth even more and never had to clean the bottom twice a month. So what is different about SF?

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Freshwater or brackish environments do not experience high fouling rates. Up in the Delta, hull cleaning isn't really even a "thing". Just not particularly necessary.

No sure I would agree. The worst fouling I ever experienced was when I kept a boat in a marina close to the mouth of a river that alternated between fresh, salt and brackish as the tide changed.

[sabray]

Nice video,
Not my experience, I use Trinidad sr but when I scrub there is discoloration. The outer layer floats off. Maybe the first scrub after recoat one month out it would look like that. Disingenuous footage and you know it.
Y'all that don't know about this kinda thing go put a soft brush against Trinidad after 8 months. See if the water is all clear like that footage shows .
Unreal.
Sbttm your hurting yourself by putting garbage like this out there. Same as the paint guys you are lobbying against. You chose a diluted case to make your point.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by skipmac

I have kept boats in harbors with similar sunshine and temps and places with warmer temps that I think encourage growth even more and never had to clean the bottom twice a month. So what is different about SF?

We don't clean twice a month. Never said we did. When I say "bi-monthly" I mean every two months.

Originally Posted by skipmac

No sure I would agree. The worst fouling I ever experienced was when I kept a boat in a marina close to the mouth of a river that alternated between fresh, salt and brackish as the tide changed.

Dunno what to tell you. Here, in freshwater or brackish, boat bottoms are cleaned infrequently or not at all. In fact, if you take your dirty bottom from the main Bay up to the Delta, it will come back clean.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by sabray

Nice video,
Not my experience, I use Trinidad sr but when I scrub there is discoloration. The outer layer floats off. Maybe the first scrub after recoat one month out it would look like that. Disingenuous footage and you know it.
Y'all that don't know about this kinda thing go put a soft brush against Trinidad after 8 months. See if the water is all clear like that footage shows .
Unreal.
Sbttm your hurting yourself by putting garbage like this out there. Same as the paint guys you are lobbying against. You chose a diluted case to make your point.

Umm... OK.

[JK n Smitty]

Originally Posted by avb3

Any expirence yet with paints like Hydrocoat? It is apparently copper free but ablative. I wonder how effective it is in the real world .

Hydrocoat is still copper paint but is water based not oil based. I use to use it but they changed the formula a few years back and it was as affective.

I just finished 2 years on 2 thin coats of Pacifica Plus. It's a non-copper paint. We really liked it and plan to but 5-6 thin coats on to prepare our boat to go for at least 3 years until the next bottom job.

[JK n Smitty]

Fastbottoms,

I have read your posts and most of the report. I have not seen a compliant about the methodologies used. Just complaints about the funding source and the results.

Do you have any complaints on the methodology they used?

[JK n Smitty]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Here's my big problem with the study. Sample collection was done with a device that is supposed to approximate a human performing in-water hull cleaning. A spring-loaded, hand-cranked scrubbing cylinder? That is what the entire study is based upon. But since the CPDA was not allowed to witness the study or see any of the data as it was being collected (we asked and were rebuffed), who the hell knows if the device actually performed as advertised. It is entirely possible that the sample collection methodology was completely flawed (perhaps intentionally) since no hull cleaning professionals (or anybody else who has ever cleaned a boat bottom) were allowed to participate in the study or witness the device's use.

Sorry for my previous post. I missed this one.

As someone has already pointed out this is extremely common in scientific experimentation. You need to eliminate a many variables as possible. So having a machine consistently scrub with various media seems to be a good way to do it.

You can't conduct science by committee. You design an experiment and conduct it.

The results are the results.