Antifouling propshafts

[asteven221]

Normally I just put a thin film of grease or something similar on the propshafts and don't really have any bother with excessive fouling. Our (salt water) marina has a river running into it which seems to help keep fouling away. Even after two years in the water, all I would expect to see is some slime and a few isolated barnacles.

In February I got a new boat, which was delivered on a transporter. Given that I was desperate to play with my new toy, it was plonked into the water without my usual preparations, other than a quick application of Interspeed on the hull. In August I stuck a camera under to have a look at the stern gear and was astonished with the amount of barnacles. The propshafts (in fact all the stern gear) were totally covered by a very thick, and I mean very thick layer. Luck would have it that a diver was around and nipped down to clean it all up.

That got me thinking. I have never antifouled propshaft or props and to be honest I am not sure why. It seems to make sense.

What do other forumites do?

 

[asteven221]

Hey, HELLO! anybody there? I take it then that it's only me that's interested in this particular subject!!! Maybe one for the PBO folks then or even Scuttlebut.

 

[jfm]

Dunno why but I've always had much oless fouling on the shafts than on other metal underwater parts. So I've never used a/f paint on shafts. I think it depends where your boat is kept (the Med, in my case), and the species of marine life prevalent there

 

[Doghousekeeper]

Same for me. I use specialised spray a/f for props on the rudders and props but nothing on the shafts (which were pretty well clean when we lifted out recently after 16 months in the water)

 

[kimhollamby]

I've never antifouled propshafts but I must confess to wondering whether to do something this year after seeing the state of Formanda's sterngear on her lift in August. This was after two years in the water:

A lot of elbow grease and some concrete cleaner later and we were back to normal:

I was originally planning to try smearing some lanolin on the sterngear prior to launch, as I have heard positive noises about that over the years. But my thought that there was a pot of the stuff buried deep in Formanda's bosun's locker proved false. So we didn't coat the props and shafts with anything, just gave them a good polish. The P-brackets were already antifouled when we got Formanda so we kept up that regime. Hopefully we'll be more active with the boat now which will help keep the sterngear a little less biologically challenged in future. Either that or we certainly plan to make the barnacles somewhat dizzier!

 

[asteven221]

Interesting views. I have had much the same experience as everyone else, with several different boats in the same marina over the years. It's strange then, that this year after only 6 months in the water, the propshafts were invisible due to a thick (roughly 15mm) thick layer of barnacles.