What Is the Best Anti-Fouling Bottom Paint

[Tempest245]

Micron Extra seems to work fine for me....I haven't felt the need to change..yet

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by defjef

Why even bother with polluting nasty bottom paint? Bottom paint is a rip off, an environmental disaster and waste of time.

We need to stop with this nonsense.

Clearly you have never tried to clean a boat that didn't have an anti fouling on it. Anti fouling may be a necessary evil, but it is necessary.

[Ex-Calif]

I sure wish there was a difinitive list of this stuff cuz everyone has opinions but there is no holy grail that I have found. We painted last August and whatever was put on is terrible - build up in less than 2 weeks.

We are going to paint soon - so I googled for paint and I get the NextTag website - Antifouling Paint - Compare Prices, Reviews and Buy at NexTag - Price - Review

So:

West Marine CPP Multi-season ablative - $64.99
West Marine CPP "Plus" - $44.99
Baltoplate Antifouling - $190
Petite ACP Ultima - $94.93
Micron66 - $227 (ding, ding, ding - we have a winner folks!)

So WTF? So confused - what's a girl to do...

I have heard good things about Micron66 - NO wonder - it's the most expensive.

As to cost of job? We have been quoted around $1300 but 80% is material cost (Micron66)

I'd love to have a good article about the different coatings.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

I sure wish there was a difinitive list of this stuff cuz everyone has opinions but there is no holy grail that I have found.

There can be no definitive list because fouling conditions vary widely from one port to the next and no single anti fouling performs well in all of them. What works great for Popeye on the East Coast of the U.S doesn't work for sh*t on Bluto's boat in the Asian Pacific, etc., etc.

The closest thing to an all-around solution is a name brand modified epoxy, like Petit Trinidad. 'Course, that's just my 14 years experience as a hull cleaner talking. YMMV.

[Sandero]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Clearly you have never tried to clean a boat that didn't have an anti fouling on it. Anti fouling may be a necessary evil, but it is necessary.

My suggestion would be to do a scrape quite frequently on a slippery clean gelcoat bottom, or perhaps over some other very hard non toxic paint. If you don't have growth build up, then the scraping should be relatively easy. No?

How long does it take for nasty stuff to grow?

[Steve Pope]

Def Jef, It depends where you are, in the Kaipara Harbour,(NZ)(largest in the Southern Hemisphere) the oyster barges (un painted) pressure wash every 2 weeks in the early spring / summer, any longer the grass and barnacles have to be scraped off. I was there in late autumn and within 3 weeks I had grass 50 to 60mm long growing and lots of young barnacles attaching themselves on a bottom that was painted with Trilux less than a year before. Outside of the Kaipara it only attracted slime.

[Pelagic]

This may be a stupid observation but up until last year I kept StarGazer on a mooring in Tropical waters and while I dove about 4 times a year to keep the bottom clean, I got relatively little growth.

Now at a marina where the docks themselves are heavily encrusted with growth, the fouling is incredibly fast.

Perhaps there is a simple way to protect the boats from the seeding of marina growth?

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by defjef

My suggestion would be to do a scrape quite frequently on a slippery clean gelcoat bottom, or perhaps over some other very hard non toxic paint. If you don't have growth build up, then the scraping should be relatively easy. No?

How long does it take for nasty stuff to grow?

I can't speak for any locale other than California. My experience is that a hull not coated with something specifically designed to retard marine growth will begin to noticeably foul within days (the actual process of fouling begins within hours of immersion) and even with weekly cleanings, will be essentially uncleanable within a very short time.

There are any number of non-toxic anti foulings available now, but they tend to be expensive, difficult to apply and most importantly, not particularly effective. But if the trend we see in San Diego is any indicator, copper as an ingredient in anti fouling paint will be banned (in California at least) before very much longer, regardless of the efficacy of its successor.

[gramos]

Originally Posted by XAVIER

Hi subscribers,
I have gathered some information about antifouling alternatives (and cleaning too).
Dispite all the right information you have written on this thread I read some about Cooper Epoxy paints and it effectiveness. They say it lasts up to 8 years with a soft algae grow that can be clean easily with sponge action every 6 months.
I do not have tried until now, but I will do.
You can read some reports on:
Product User Notes - User Feedback
There are a site explaining how we can made such antifouling (cooper powder and epoxy two components). Unlike common soft antifouling, they claim that this hard paint do not release the cooper content in the enviroment (?):
Copper Epoxy Filler

Greatings

Francisco Xavier
francisco.xavier@csanet.pt

i have just coated my cats hulls with this product - brilliant ! after 10 years the original copperbot had become innefective so i abraded it and applied a mix of 1 lb of powder to 1 litre of epoxy and applied it with a short pile roller 3 coats . by thetime i had got round one hull it was dry enough for the next coat . i already knew copper is the best anti-foul and its easy to apply . why anti- foul every year ? go sailing instead !

[David M]

You have to admire the old sailing ships that simply put copper plate on the bottom of their hulls. 100% copper....cant beat that.

[Whimsical]

Originally Posted by gramos

i have just coated my cats hulls with this product - brilliant ! after 10 years the original copperbot had become innefective so i abraded it and applied a mix of 1 lb of powder to 1 litre of epoxy and applied it with a short pile roller 3 coats . by thetime i had got round one hull it was dry enough for the next coat . i already knew copper is the best anti-foul and its easy to apply . why anti- foul every year ? go sailing instead !

Equal parts by wieght.
Bugger I used 2 parts copper to one resin. Was a bitch to apply as it is so gluggy but hopefully it will work well.

Mike

[Alan Wheeler]

I have heard not so good responses about this product. So how well does the copper work? Does the hull have to be scrubbed and or sanded each year or even sooner or later?

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

The closest thing to an all-around solution is a name brand modified epoxy, like Petit Trinidad. 'Course, that's just my 14 years experience as a hull cleaner talking. YMMV.

I've had the best luck with Petit too... I spent 2 years in the water in NY/NJ/ME and had almost no growth at all (just where I missed the bottom of the keel) when I was hauled out. There was no diving, no cleaning and nothing but the paint doing its trick.

We didn't even get a lot of sailing days in, as we were living and working at anchor for a lot of it.

I was amazed.

[fcsob]

Any body use Super Ship Bottom paint? Super Shipbottom* Hard Ablative Antifouling Paint

[colemj]

Originally Posted by fcsob

Any body use Super Ship Bottom paint? Super Shipbottom* Hard Ablative Antifouling Paint

We will be using this for the first time this year. I can tell you more about it in a year or two...

Mark