SeaHawk Bottom Paint - **CKS!

[Capt.Tom]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I don’t feel like arguing with you and there is little doubt you are just looking to be some “expert” to the point of doing research looking for your chance.

I can’t help you if you can’t read. I did everything by Seahawks directions and even checked with them ahead of time.

Cukote can be boosted with a pint of BioCop per gal of Cukote. That leaves a lot of BioCop left over and this was applied over the Cukote. Seahawk approved this to me.

The barnacles are growing right on the final coat of BioCop, which is their top paint.

I'm just going to jump in here with an observation and a question.
The manufacturer told you it was ok to mix 1 quart of Biocop in with every gallon of their Cukote and that would enhance the Cukote. Well, they should know their own products....
They were very specific about 1 quart to 1 gallon...? They didnt say, if you mix 2 quarts it would be even better ? I assume that not to be the case since they were specific about 1 quart on Biocop.... Theres probably a reason they didnt sa adding more will be ok.

So why did you paint over your 4x1 mixture of Cukote & Biocop with a full kote of Biocop ?
I imagine that through off the mixture ratio causing a reaction and making you bottom paint ineffectual...

I realize you had extra Biocop but I think that messed up you ablative properties causing the barnacles to stay stuck...
My yard puts some cheap brand on my Hunter 40 and it lasts all year in the NY- Rhode Island area. I do have to dust the bottom every 6weeks or so...

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Capt.Tom

So why did you paint over your 4x1 mixture of Cukote & Biocop with a full kote of Biocop ?

Because I had $175 worth BioCop leftover after the CuKote mixing and Seahawk said it was Ok to put in on top.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I applied 3 gals of Seahawk CuKote and 1 gal of SeaHawk BioCop to my hull between Feb 8-13, 2019. Now it is only April 21, 2019 and I have barnacles all over the hull! So that's 2 months and 1 week on $980 worth on what is suppose to be their upper end and best bottom paints.

While they have a warranty, it is written so it would never cover a DIYer. So even though I sent them a comment I expect nothing and even if they covered it, it still would be completely unacceptable.

Just thought I would share.

My last word on this:

I scraped off those barnacles and they came back within 2.5 weeks in a different harbor. So now a Hookah is in my future and I'm going to become very familiar with my boat bottom the next 2 years.

I did contact Seahawk at the start of this to let them know. As I expected, without saying it they started right down the wording in their warranty that pretty much excludes any DIY application. So the warranty (below) is meaningless if you are DIY:

"New Nautical Coatings, Inc. warrants the Covered Product to be free of all defects in material and workmanship and to deter hull fouling from hard growth including any and all types of barnacles, corals, oysters, or zebra mussels for a period of one year"

The regional sales guy made words to sound like he wanted me to be a "satisfied Seahawk user" and the lastest word was "If you are willing to pay for a haul out, I will I’ll come look at the boat". But that's crazy to me to throw good money for the hope of, at best, a new application of the paint that's not performing.

To the people who posted they use Seahawk paint and it's working. That's great for you that the paint is doing what it is supposed to do. But that doesn't mean much to us that the paint isn't.

To those that posted they had a problem and Seahawk paid to have their paint repainted. That's not really an acceptable outcome. All that says is that using their paint is a gamble and may work from batch to batch.

To those that posted their Seahawk paint didn't work, I feel your pain and wish when I was deciding to use it and researched the paint a warning thread showed up in my search (here it now is).

[Leo Ticheli]

How many factors affect the durability of bottom paints? I should think the water temperature, current, chemical composition of the water, and local marine life come into play as well as the formulation of the paint and the specific batch.
My first Sea Hawk CuKote bottom job seemed to hold up well for a couple of years in Pensacola, Florida with monthly diver cleaning. The next job was with Pettit Ultima SR60, which did not seem to be as good, but during its life, we sailed to Cuba and to the Bahamas,
so the boat was in very different conditions.
We just splashed after another Sea Hawk CuKote job and we'll be sailing west Florida and up the Atlantic coast, again, very different conditions.
I've read some bottom paint tests and the most striking finding to me is that no paint works well in all locations.

[Exile]

What's rather odd about this thread is that, despite many worthwhile suggestions about why SailorBoy's bottom paint may not be working, none of them apply to the stated facts of his particular case. We're talking about brand new paint over time periods of 10 days to 2.5 weeks (if I'm not mistaken) before hard growth is appearing. The same pattern is being repeated in different areas along the US SE coast. SB is an experienced DIY'er who sought out & received approvals from the mfg. for his application process. AFAIK there are no claims of problems with the new paint adhering.

In my own 11 years of boat ownership, I've used different brands of both hard paints & ablatives, had it applied by yards and done it myself, sailed and had the boat docked for extended periods in many different areas along the US e. coast, and never had hard growth in such short periods of time. Has anybody else? If not, and imo, there are too many other more consistently performing paints out there not to cross Seahawk off the list if they are unwilling to provide some recourse.

[Tayana42]

Not wanting to pile on but I had a bad experience with SeaHawk bottom paint too. After many years of using Pettit Trinidad on both the east coast and the west coast of the USA I was talked into using SeaHawk Tropic Coat if I remember correctly. It is a hard paint similar to Pettit Trinidad I was told and the yard had a special price. It didn’t wok nearly as well as Trinidad, didn’t last long, didn’t prevent fouling even though I have a monthly dive service. So I went back to Pettit Trinidad and have never been unhappy with it.

[Paul L]

Their warranty is pretty explicit about no warranty for DIY and the requirement for monthly cleaning. Basically a useless warranty for a DIY

New Nautical Coatings does not warranty paints applied by any persons other than a Certified Sea Hawk Boatyard/Applicator.
Paints that have not been properly maintained on a monthly basis. Proper cleaning and maintenance includes but is not limited to: cleaning slime and pollutants from the hull that allow barnacles to grow on the residue which insulates the antifouling properties from growth. Proper cleaning can be accomplished by a gentle rubbing of the hulls surface with a soft cloth or soft car wash wool mitt removing all slime and pollutants exposing antifouling paint.

[Seymore]

My boat is in Turner's Creek in Savannah Ga USA, with its 7' tide and associated current. The hulls of the boat ahead of mine and my boat were cleaned at the same time about 8 months ago. Now his hull is clean as a whistle and mine has 6" of hard growth on it.

He had his hull painted with Pettit Trinidad and I had mine painted with Sea Hawk Cukote.

[sailorboy1]

Well I said I had done my final word on the thread. But ....................

I was under the boat just week and checked and cleaned it. Since then I left a marshy location in Fort Myers Beach and went out into the Gulf then to Punta Gorda Fl into the mouth of the Peace River (brackish) for 3 days and now am anchored in the GIWW south of Venice Fl. Went in for a swim just now and while in checked the bottom. The barnacles have now moved to growing pretty much everywhere and it has BEEN LESS THAN A WEEK!!!

[a64pilot]

I hate to say this, but it sounds like a bottom job is in your future, soon.
I’d take the rep up and short haul the boat for his inspection, cause it sounds like if you don’t your doing another bottom job soon and eating the whole cost yourself.
I can’t imagine you did anything wrong, it’s pretty much just slapping paint on.

[Exile]

Yup, this isn't one of those cases we often read about where a bottom paint is reported to have merely underperformed compared to another one, and there are variables in play which makes reaching conclusions difficult if not impossible. Something's definitely wrong here. Maybe an insufficiently mixed batch from the factory with too low a copper/cuprous oxide or biocide content? Who knows, doesn't matter, you might want to try for some recourse (to the extent it's practicable) notwithstanding the DIY exclusion in the warranty.

[sailorboy1]

Was swimming today around the boat today to cool off. It's a sharp pointy jungle under the boat, so sharp I'm glad I had my gloves on before I wiped to see how things were as it cut through the glove.. The slime stuff seems to kind of work, but the barnacles seem to love that Seahawk BioCop. I'm hoping they are all small ones I missed earlier that have growth as there is a lot of surface that's clean.

I'm hoping the "blue house paint" they call BioCop is somehow going to get better with time and cleaning

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I'm hoping the "blue house paint" they call BioCop is somehow going to get better with time and cleaning

It won’t because that’s not how anti fouling paint works.

[sailorboy1]

it doesn't work, that's how it "works"

I was looking at my scraper the other time that I had been using. It is a drywall tool and has a concave section in the middle and I hope all the current hard growth is because tiny growth didn't get scraped back in Marathon because it went under the tape knife.

I lose nothing by making an attempt at positive thoughts for the suck a** Seahawk paint.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I lose nothing by making an attempt at positive thoughts for the suck a** Seahawk paint.

K- well for your edification, typical copper-based anti fouling paints leach their biocide at a proscribed rate. This leach rate spikes however, when the paint is new. This spike lasts about 90 days and the paint is performing at its maximum during this time. After that, the leach rate will level out and stay relatively constant until the biocide is depleted to the point that the paint is ineffective. So what this means is that your paint is never going to perform better than it has up to now. It will only perform worse, positive thoughts notwithstanding.