Antifoul frequency

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Elemental

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I've always antifouled annually.

A couple of seasons ago, I had the hull blasted to remove the (many) years of a/f and reprimed. I applied a coat of Cruiser Uno with poor fouling protection. Last season, I applied SML Cu-Pro. It claims a "service interval of up to three years " and I have to say the fouling was minimal. I'm left wondering whether to antifoul at all this spring. The boat has to come out for a new prop. (Darglow Featherstream) so I'm tempted to give it a good blast with the pressure washer, a light surface abrasion with wet paper and leave it be. However, I'll be ticked off if the fouling goes mad through the summer.

How effective are multi-year antifoul coats? Or should I just take the opportunity to stick another coat of Cu-Pro on while she's out?
 
If you pressure wash the hull, you'll blast off some of the antifoul. Similarly, if you wet sand it afterwards, you'll lose even more. So in that case it would be wise to add another coat of Cu-Pro.

I only lift for antifouling every 2 years, the boat's in the water the rest of the time. I use International Micron, and it works well, as long as the correct amount is applied.

Note that the Cu-Pro application instructions say "As a rule of thumb, if you are brushing or rolling, you should find that one coat, applied at a spreading rate of 10m²/L plus an extra coat at areas of turbulence such as leading edge, waterline, rudder and keel will give you protection for one season of typical leisure use. ...... We recommend that if you are a typical user and you lift your boat out and re-antifoul every year, that you apply two coats initially, and then one “top-up” coat at each liftout." I'm not sure how those instructions relate to the claim of "a service interval of up to three years".
 
We do ours every two or three years with whatever is cheapest locally and nothing more abrasive than a pressure wash.

The biggest factor seems to be whether we
move our base marina, which we do most years. Growth seems quite particular about growing very locally.
 
Why not clean it up and perhaps give it a scrub or lightly wet sand by hand with some very fine abrasive paper . You have only had one year out of the claimed three years performance potential . If you don't give it a chance to prove itself how will you ever know i whether you are wasting time and money applying antifouling too often?
 
Daydream believer said:
Get coppercoat. You will know in advance that it will not work, so you will feel Ok about having the boat hauled out & jetwashed twice a year
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haha quite amusing but what’s more amusing is the fact that you are more willing to keep shelling out on a product that needs to be applied yearly and in recent years has become less and less effective but also increasingly more expensive.

on the other hand nothing, that’s right nothing, grows on my coppercoat (could be down to sailing area, or just actually using the boat) therefore no yearly outlay for ineffectual paint and time spent applying said useless product, so far I’ve not even needed a pressure wash.

one less job for me to do this springtime
 
Scillypete said:
on the other hand nothing, that’s right nothing, grows on my coppercoat (could be down to sailing area, or just actually using the boat) therefore no yearly outlay for ineffectual paint and time spent applying said useless product, so far I’ve not even needed a pressure wash.
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I guess you don't keep your boat in the upper reaches of Portsmouth harbour then? My Coppercoat finish was lightly abraded, launched in late March and always needed it's first scrub by id June. A pile of proverbial.

Still, I did find that Coppercoat made an excellent base for Micron antifouling (that worked far better).

I too would much prefer not to have to antifoul annually. I'd be pleased to discover a suitable marine finish that enabled me to do so.
 
Scillypete said:
haha quite amusing but what’s more amusing is the fact that you are more willing to keep shelling out on a product that needs to be applied yearly and in recent years has become less and less effective but also increasingly more expensive.

on the other hand nothing, that’s right nothing, grows on my coppercoat (could be down to sailing area, or just actually using the boat) therefore no yearly outlay for ineffectual paint and time spent applying said useless product, so far I’ve not even needed a pressure wash.

one less job for me to do this springtime
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Well I have coppercoat ( second application now so I have given it a good go) & i do about 2000 miles PA between Brest, the east coast & the Netherlands & i have to launch late, scrub mid season & come out fairly early as the boat becomes unsailable with growth. Only saving factor is that I do not have a great build up of antifoul paint so when washed the boat sails well . Saving in the cost of mid season wash is less than the antifoul & my labour every year
 
We having our second winter in Licata Sicily , Licata is known for it bad fouling problem , mainly course by the fish farms inside the harbour , last time we was here was in 2014 some boats had to be tow to the hard to get hauled out .
They have a diver now that at a cost will clear prop, hull fitting and give the bottom a quick clean.
just take the boats on both side of us they have growth along the water line , and the rudders are also covered .
We copper coated our boat about a month before coming in the marina end of sept , our concern was that it's not had time to really start to work , we now done three full months in the marina , the water line and rudder is 100% clean ,
Running my hand under the water line while in the dinghy I can't feel any growth,
Only once we ready to leave where I will need to dive to remove the bag I fixed to the prop will I get a real view what the underneath conditions is but so far I really happen with the results.
This is the second boat we copper coats , when I say we , it because we did the work from start to finish our self , although we did have the old AF remove this time by a yard.
We have friend who's had copper coat apply by professional yards and have had problem and had to have it all done a second time , usually free labour cost .

Most will had seen that you tube Video where the guy spend thousand on his copper coat and it still didn't work , although when set part where redone , on tho test parts it worked fine ,
I am no expert but it tell me there must been some thing that went wrong in the first place ,
if some part are working well and others not, ( mixing ,applying) what ever .
I think we would all agree copper coat is going to work better in some places then other .
If unlike ourself you keep your boat in just one area , I would take a good look round at other boats that's has copper coat and see how they our performing, talk to the owners.

I can honestly say without being bias on our last boat cruising for nine months each year in all over the Med it worked very well and the odd shell that we found would drop off at a touch,

We did have a small problem with white worm or as some call it rock worm , in places but boats with AF would be coved in this stuff .
The real problem was slim , leaving slim on the water line would encourage growth.
We are still in touch with the new owner of our old boat and he says he still happy with the CC , it's now in its nine year .
 
As new boatowners and not wishing to hijack the tread can I ask the following ….

1/ Our boat has been permanently moored in the water and in the med at Cyprus and when we viewed had a 3 to 4 inch beard , is the warmer waters of the med a better growth medium for fouling ?

2/ The boat has not been used much by the previous owners ( 500 hours in 10 years ) so guessing lack of movement regularly is a good breeding condition for fouling , the see in Cyprus is very saline , is this good or bad ?

3/ Include in our annual berthing charges is a once a year free lift , clean and antifoul , as we hope to utilise the boat more , especially as we are just about retired , do you think this is sufficient protection to keep her bottom clean or is it a ' suck it and see' scenario ?
 
My opinion for what it's worth , any boat left standing be it the med or colder water is likely to have a bread around it water line .


What more important is how much fouling has it underneath, water line are easy to clean off.





A clean and AF once a year I would had said was more then fine as long as it's good AF .
 
pvb said:
If you pressure wash the hull, you'll blast off some of the antifoul. Similarly, if you wet sand it afterwards, you'll lose even more. So in that case it would be wise to add another coat of Cu-Pro.

I only lift for antifouling every 2 years, the boat's in the water the rest of the time. I use International Micron, and it works well, as long as the correct amount is applied.

Note that the Cu-Pro application instructions say "As a rule of thumb, if you are brushing or rolling, you should find that one coat, applied at a spreading rate of 10m²/L plus an extra coat at areas of turbulence such as leading edge, waterline, rudder and keel will give you protection for one season of typical leisure use. ...... We recommend that if you are a typical user and you lift your boat out and re-antifoul every year, that you apply two coats initially, and then one “top-up” coat at each liftout." I'm not sure how those instructions relate to the claim of "a service interval of up to three years".
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I too used 2 coats of the Cu-Pro last year for the first time and based on the relatively clean bottom on Haul out in October I intend to apply only 1 generous coat this year on our Bilge keel Fulmar. That was 1 one 5L tin, so I expect to use 3 to 4L this year.
 
Jissel has Coppercoat that is now about 12 years old, and a few bald patches are appearing. She lives on a drying mooring, so sits in Portsmouth mud for a couple of hours every tide, so the CC is ineffective, but so are all the antifouls I've tried. As a result, I've given up and just scrub off maybe three times a year. However, my health isn't what it was, and I'm finding lying between the keels scraping barnacles more and more overrated as an experience. Does anyone know if CuPro would work in such conditions?
 
Boat location may influence matters butCu Pro seems pretty good to me. I shall not be re-coating this year but will give it a hose down (not pressure wash) and a wet rub over with an open mesh sand paper on the end of a pole sander. After that there may be the need for a quick touch up in spots that are thin (along the waterline for instance) but thats all. I hope for 2 years minimum between coats.
 
ryanroberts said:
Does anyone have first hand experience of the new silicone coatings? Not poisoning the wildlife is a tempting feature
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I tried it on the prop this year and it wasn't noticeably effective although I used the boat at least weekly. However, I haven't hauled out yet, though I imagine it will now be very foul as the engine is laid up. It is not suitable for sailing boat hulls as more speed is needed to self-clean.
 
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