Antifouling every Spring. Is it necessary?

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Miker

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Another thread had me wondering. I take my boat out every Autumn and antifoul it with Cruiser AF every Spring before re-launching. When the boat comes out there is a thin coating of slime which I hose off. I also scrub the bottom in the Spring before applying more AF. What I am wondering is whether applying more AF is necessary or whether the old AF will still be active after 5 to 6 months out of the water.
 
By "Cruiser AF" do you mean International Cruiser UNO?

If so it is only intended to give one seasons protection. There may not be enough active material left to give a full second season's worth of protection but you could try not antifouling it if you are prepared to accept the possibility of heavier fouling before the end of the season.

You obviously moor in a low fouling area. A less powerful/ cheaper antifouling might be adequate but I'd stick with what works well.
 
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My last UK boat was probably anti fouled just twice in 7 years and taken out and scrubbed off a couple of times when getting other work done. I tend to walk around the Marina berth with a log handled scrubbing brush and use the wooden back of he brush to scrape the worst off down to about a foot below the waterline. Then around May when at a calm anchorage I put a wetsuit on and scrape/scrub the boat, and then again later on in the season.

That worked fine for me in various marinas along the South Coast. I have a (probably wrong) theory that if you move your boat to a different Marina each season the stuff on your boat doesn't grow well and inhibits the local flora and fauna.

I'm now trying the same tactic with my boat in Croatia which we haven't anti fouled. We bought it in September 2010 scrubbed off but with old patchy remains of antifouling. I may change my mind when I next go down in March and see what 6 months growth looks like. Oddly the real growth was on the rib which I had to pull out onto the pontoon and take a whole jungle off last June.
 
I dried my boat out for a tide at the beginning of October to antifoul after 2 years as she was starting to get a bit of weed growing round the waterline though this would come and go as the boat was used.
 
If your boat is on a swinging mooring and has to be lifted out every winter, there's probably justification for cleaning the hull and re-antifouling every spring. If it's marina-based, it doesn't have to be lifted out every winter - most marinas don't charge more if the boat's in or out over the winter. I lift the boat for a week every second year for cleaning and antifouling; and do this in the summer when there are cheap lift-out offers. This routine involves applying more antifouling (2 or 3 good coats of Micron), but saves many hundreds of pounds in lift-out charges.
 
I can never resist these antifouling threads. I lift out my bilge keeler every winter and pressure wash the hull. In midsummer I dry out on a sand bank and spend a happy half hour with the back of a broom. No antifouling for the last 12 years. Yes I get a thin layer of barnacles - so what? Meanwhile - no cost, no effort and no pollution (and of course no cups for winning races).
 
richardabeattie said:
I can never resist these antifouling threads. I lift out my bilge keeler every winter and pressure wash the hull. In midsummer I dry out on a sand bank and spend a happy half hour with the back of a broom. No antifouling for the last 12 years. Yes I get a thin layer of barnacles - so what? Meanwhile - no cost, no effort and no pollution (and of course no cups for winning races).
Click to expand...

The think is having had a bilge keeler those barnacles do make a very noticeable difference particularly up wind...

Depends upon how you like your sailing...
 
Not quite an answer to the OP, but the T&C's for Clyde Marina contain the following:-
" In accordance with the Scottish Government's policy of limiting spread of invasive non-native species, and following best practice as outlined in the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011, it is a condition of berthing that boats are lifted, hulls cleaned off at least once a year and re-antifouled as necessary. The company reserve the right to lift ashore boats with excess fouling and charge according to published tariffs."
Other Scottish marinas and harbours will probably do likewise I expect.
 
Just hauled out after two years. At least 2/3 of the hull was impeccable. Some slime on about 1/3. And around the waterline some very small crustaceans.

Really all the needed doing was a pressure wash and then a scrape along the waterline and a new coat of antifouling from the waterline down about 4 inches. The rest of the hull was perfect after the pressure wash.

It costs me 500 euros the round trip out and in again, so I might as well antifoul the whole hull at the same time.
 
Similar thoughts here. Shrimper on swing mooring SE Scotland. Antifouled when new 3 yrs ago and not since. Hauled out yesterday and 10 mins with a deckbrush and hoe with very light pressure removed everything. I'm not spending half a day and £50 anti fouling if this is all it takes
 
A couple of years ago, we found, in a local hardware store, a kit for washing upstairs windows. It cost under a tenner and consisted of a long telescopic pole with an adjustable cranked section at the end and a couple of heads that could be attached. One of these heads was a squeegee intended for drying the window after washing.

The length of the pole and the range of angles on the cranked section were such that we could squeegee pretty much the whole of the underside of the boat, standing on a pontoon - turning the boat round half way through - did that every couple of weeks and it came out near spotless at the end of the year.

Now Coppercoated - cost close to three grand - hope it does as good a job as out tenner window cleaner!
 
I hosed the undersid down with a pressure washer when the boat came out last October. Looking at it the other day, I must have missed large areas or didn't apply sufficient water pressure on it. The muck has now dried so I willl be going over it with a pole sander. I could do with an attachment to my pressure washer that delivers the jet at an angle from the nozzle. My boat is a lift keeler with a flat stern so it is difficult to cut into the muck in places.
 
earlybird said:
Not quite an answer to the OP, but the T&C's for Clyde Marina contain the following:-
" In accordance with the Scottish Government's policy of limiting spread of invasive non-native species........ boats are lifted, hulls cleaned off at least once a year and re-antifouled as necessary.
Click to expand...

Its the SNP at it again! If you leave Scottish Territorial Waters and get non-Scottish slime or barnacles, you have to wash them off... :)
 
I'm consumed with jealousy. I use a well known antifoul (Cruiser UNO) and the boat fouls within a couple of months. Other boats in the same location (Portsmouth hr), using (I assume) a variety of different antifouls, seem to have the same trouble.
(But the dinghy I used to have, which lay afloat, and used the same antifoul, fouled hardly at all during the whole season!)
Yes, I agree, there is no logic to this.
 
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