Quote:
Originally Posted by s/v Jedi
fstbttms,
I am not going to enter in an endless flaming discussion with you...
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Of course not. That's why you began your part in this conversation by claiming I was "fooling" my customers into thinking they need my
service...
Quote:
Originally Posted by s/v Jedi
anti-fouling means it is supposed to prevent fouling; not to make it easier to clean the bottom every 3-4 weeks. You really think ships in the tropics are cleaned every 3-4 weeks?...
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Surely you can appreciate the difference between a ship (anywhere in the world) which is kept moving almost all the time and a typical pleasure
boat which spends probably 99% of its life sitting in a slip or at a
mooring. Regardless of what you believe the reality to be,
boats painted with copper-based paints and living in moderate to high fouling regions need periodic
hull cleaning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s/v Jedi
You don't need any anti-fouling when you clean every 3-4 weeks.
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This is soooo not true. I can't imagine how foul your
hull would get in the tropics without
anti fouling paint- even if it were cleaned on a monthly basis. I won't even clean
boats in
California without
bottom paint. Even here, after a short while you absolutely can't keep up with the fouling growth. But maybe you have a different definition of what an acceptable level of fouling is than I do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s/v Jedi
And last but not least: you make it appeaer you are very worried about the environment. This means you should NOT be happy with Trinidad as it has the highest amount of copper in it off all the paints worldwide. Also, you should not clean boats in the water, only when hauled and all the polluting chemicals are contained and collected as required by US law. You should persuade your customers to use that Teflon paint instead..
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I
am concerned about the
environment. I follow a set of Best Management Practices approved by the the State of
California that help me reduce my impact on the environment. Further, studies show that in-water hull
cleaning activities account for only a small fraction of the total copper that enters the
water column. Well over 90% comes from the passive leaching that is part of the method that all copper-based
anti fouling paints use to perform their function. In a perfect world, copper would be banned as well as tin, but it's not (yet) and most boaters still use it. I would love it if everybody went to non-toxic alternatives. From everything we've seen in California so far, my business would double immediately as these types need to cleaned about twice as often as traditional copper-based paints.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s/v Jedi
With that world wide ban of TBT paint, I assume that the US doesn't allow it's industry to produce and export it anymore??. It's not "those 3rd world countries" that allow us to buy it, because we buy it in the US of A.
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Really? You come to a
chandlery in this country and buy Islands 44 off the shelf? Because according to the Seahawk web site, that product is available for export only.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s/v Jedi
Anyone knowledgable should calculate what is more polluting: the small amount of TBT based paint that allows a boat so sail in tropical waters for 3 years or the (at least) 3 times that much amount of copper based paint like Trinidad (75% copper). We would need a "poison-factor" for each type of paint to calculate that
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Tri butyl tin is a far more dangerous poison than cuprous oxide. Which is why it is banned and copper is not. I don't have the data to back that claim up but clearly, the proof is in the fact TBT paints are far more effective than copper paints. In addition, although TBT paints have been illegal in the U.S. for over 20 years, TBT can still be measured in the environment, further proof of its damaging legacy.
Despite our differences on this issue, I do commend you for choosing to use a copper-based paint for your next bottom job.