Nemo underwater hull cleaner drill

[Olly75]

Ive just stumbled across the Nemo electric hull cleaner drill (google ads seem to be almost psychic...), and was wondering if anyone out there has used one, and can vouch for its efficacy?

Its an expensive piece of kit, but I'm considering doing away with antifouling this year as its a horrible job, expensive, doesn't do anyone or anything in the water any good and going on last years trip across the pacific does, in fact, do very little to prevent growth.

So instead of using antifoul and having to scrub the hull every month anyway, I was thinking of just speeding up the hull scrubbing process and do it every couple of weeks if necessary. The bonus, by not using antifoul it will pay for itself in under three years.

Thoughts?!

[GordMay]

Wow, $1,948.72
➥ https://us.nemopowertools.com/produc...SAAEgJ3tvD_BwE

[jmh2002]

That's the 50m version. I see there is also a lesser 5m version too (although without the suction of the specialist hull cleaning model) - USD888.81

https://us.nemopowertools.com/produc...-yacht-socket/

Still expensive, but interesting

[MV Wanderlust]

Expensive... but that sure sounds interesting. Agreed, it would pay for itself in a couple of years. I'd like to hear more from people who are actually using it.

[jmh2002]

I still think that you would need a hard coat antifoul or protective barrier on the hull.

Coppercoat comes to mind.

Even the racing boats don't generally just put nothing (except maybe a dry sailed J24 type boat which gets hauled back out everyday - even they normally use McLube or some type of polish)

[a64pilot]

From my little experience whenever it takes any sort of aggressive action to clean a hull, your anti foul is done, and when it is, the required force to get the hull clean escalates until you can’t keep it clean.
With no anti foul, I think you will be astonished at how much work / force will be required, electrical gadget or not, and I wouldn’t be surprised if weekly cleanings weren’t necessary depending on how aggressive growth is where your at.
What I suspect is that no matter how often you clean, your just getting the majority of it and it will still accumulate, what you will be removing is the easy stuff to remove, leaving the difficult part to accumulate.
In other words it will win, without antifoul your fighting a losing battle, all you can do is slow it down so that it takes longer to lose the war

However if you have good antifoul, excessive force when cleaning quickly removes it, so at least from my experience I don’t see a use for an aggressive cleaner.

[jmh2002]

Hence my suggestion of a non ablative protective surface.

Coppercoat is one option, silicone type is another, as are other 'hard' racing type bottom paints of various types, but all of these may defeat the purpose financially.

I do agree that no bottom paint at all will be a disaster.

[billknny]

How--exactly--could such a tool be used underwater? You need a way to brace your body, or you spin around with the tool... The tool needs two hands, so you can't hold on.

I think you will find that the VAST majority of boats that use antifouling do so for very good reason and find it very effective. Logic suggests that if it doesn't work on your boat, it is not the concept that is bad, but the implementation.

I'll bet FastBottms Mat would have an opinion...

[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by billknny

How--exactly--could such a tool be used underwater? You need a way to brace your body, or you spin around with the tool... The tool needs two hands, so you can't hold on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lct5Dy0W8j0

[TampaTom]

A pneumatic drill can be purchased from Harbor Freight for about $17. It might work, it might not but worth trying. Hose it off afterwards and oil it, or throw it out.

[WSMFP]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Wow, $1,948.72
➥ https://us.nemopowertools.com/produc...SAAEgJ3tvD_BwE

And for that you get a 1 year warranty.

[Iduna]

Delos has been using one for quite a while in their videos and seem to love the thing.

[sailing_gal]

Given those relatively soft bristles of the brush, you have to wonder if it would remove hard stuff like barnacle "glue". You would have to use it quite often. I put Copper Coat on the bottom of my boat- works great, no scrubbing necessary- should last 10 years.

[joelhemington]

Originally Posted by Olly75

Ive just stumbled across the Nemo electric hull cleaner drill (google ads seem to be almost psychic...), and was wondering if anyone out there has used one, and can vouch for its efficacy?

Its an expensive piece of kit, but I'm considering doing away with antifouling this year as its a horrible job, expensive, doesn't do anyone or anything in the water any good and going on last years trip across the pacific does, in fact, do very little to prevent growth.

So instead of using antifoul and having to scrub the hull every month anyway, I was thinking of just speeding up the hull scrubbing process and do it every couple of weeks if necessary. The bonus, by not using antifoul it will pay for itself in under three years.

Thoughts?!

Don't own one myself, but Brian of SV Delos has been using one for years and he swears by it. Note: he probably got it for free or cheap on a sponsor deal those You Tubers get. I'd also look st some of that Seacoat bottom paint that gets sprayed on as opposed to nothing otherwise the barnacles will attack your primer coat and could get to the gel coat.

[StoneCrab]

Delos also went with a hard slick (teflon??) bottom paint that doesn't have any of the biocide agents in it. I don't recall any follow up information on whether they thought the new paint was better or worse than standard bottom paint.

It seems to be a problem that everyone struggles with.

Patrick Childress just remanufactured his boat on the hard... amazing videos. For the bottom paint he went with coppercoat. The application process appears to require a large workforce and a high degree of orchestration.

Patrick reports success:
https://whereisbrickhouse.com/2020/0...t-application/

His application video:
https://youtu.be/yoRntKgOye0