Anti fouling for small power boat

[simplyred]

Hi
I've just bought a 19 ft bowrider to keep in the water on the algarve,(not in a marina)
I have a volvo stern drive and bare GRP bottom neither has ever been treated as the boat was always trailer sailed.
As I'm new to power boating what would you suggest will be the best type of anti fouling
1) For the stern drive
2) The hull
I'm guessing that I should use a primer to start with ....any suggestions.
Water is always quite warm down here, and growth seems to be moderate, top speed of the boat is around 35mph so should it be hard anti fouling
All advice appreciated
Cheers

 

[gjgm]

The sterndrive casing is alumimium and so you need to keep any copper based a/f well away. Not sure what you can get out there but Trilux is safe.
As regards the hull, I would ask locally as a/f success seems to vary with location so local knowledge might be best !

 

[Sheppy]

Just in rough note form:

Leave your boat in the water for about a week, maybe two, keeping it as naturally level as possible. After the week or two, haul it out and you'll have the perfect waterline mark on your boat. Mask off about 2" above that line, the paint below with the your chosen paint.
You will need to perfectly clean the hull, prime, then antifoul with two good coats.
Find out what paint works in your given area by asking locals.
The leg requires different primer/antifoul paint. Make sure you mask off an area about 15mm between the leg and the hull, so you essentially end up with a gap with zero paint on the hull around the shape of the leg.
Really consider that you want to do this, as once done it's very hard to get rid of. And you'll suffer from slightly reduced speed too. Also, due to ongoing legislation antifoul paint is becoming less and less effective - IMO.
You'll still have to re-antifoul every year, and still probably need two or three lift outs each year to clean off slim.

Hope that helps.

 

[julians]

As mentioned by the people above, different antifoul is effective in different locations, so ask what works best in your area.

I have found that drive antifoul isnt very effective regardless, in my experience it tends to fall off leaving un antifouled patches.

If you're leaving the boat in the water then you really have no choice but to antifoul, without it the hull will be covered in growth very very quickly. When I bought my last boat ( a 21 foot bow rider in the med), I left it in the water without antifoul so I could determine the actual waterline for a few weeks, and lost about 7 mph off top speed in just 4 weeks. Antifouling the hull knocked about 2mph off top speed of the brand new clean un antifouled hull.

Mine needs to be antifouled once per year, but it doesnt need to be cleaned in between.

 

[simplyred]

Hi
Thanks for that info..it all makes good sense, It's been in the water for a couple of weeks , so I have that guide line you talk about.
Have a good 2014

 

[rbmatthews]

Another factor is whether it is a drying mooring or not. We keep ours on one, so that it is in the water for 2.5 hours either side of high tide, but dry outside that time. That, together with the low temperatures which range from a mean of 9oC to 14oC over the season (Scotland), means that there is never any growth from April through to October, so no need for anti-fouling. I suspect it is quite different on the Algave, however ... .

As others have said, best to find out from locals what works best.

R.