antifoul removal.

[bluedragon]

I tried almost all the DIY methods, and NEVER again. As others have said, find a yard that allows grit or similar blasting. The chemical strippers don't work well in a) winter and b) with heavy build-up of AF. If you really want to give it a go, and you have lots of layers, then an electric scraper was by far the best tool I tried...but watch out for gouging, and it won't get you back to a perfectly clean hull for epoxying, etc. If you have a thick build-up, maybe scraper first, then perhaps chemical...but wait for Spring for best results from the latter.

 

[nigelstgeorge]

Had to remove all the antifouling off our 41' boat last April. My wife and I did one side in one day of very hard work and we paid a local guy €80 for 6 hours work to do 75% of the other side and we did the rest. Yes we got pretty messy and covered in antifoul but it did the job reasonably quickly vey cheaply and looked good without any gouges in the hull. All we had to do was apply a couple of coats of grey primer before re-applying anti-fouling. So in summary either scrape it yourself or get someone else to scrape it off.