Anyone tried Subscrub ?

max_power

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A Lymington man has designed a hydrodynamic scrubbing brush that cleans the hull as you sail. It will not clean vertical surfaces for some reason though.

If interested take a look at the site - www.subscrub.com. Price is about 65 UK pounds.

Has anyone had any reports about this gadget ?

Regards,
Max

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It looks like a tedious job for one person, rather easier with two. Moving the brush aft about a foot at a time for the whole length of both sides of the hull would seem to be the work of an hour's sailing, not the couple of minutes that is suggested. What happens in the aft half, where presumably water flow tends to stream the device away from the hull?

Personally, I use a brush with an adjustable head angle, bought very cheaply at an ironmonger's. Most of the fouling occurs in the upper parts, close to the boot-topping. As the hull becomes more difficult to reach, further down, so the fouling is less. Takes about 10 minutes to walk all around the deck and clean the whole lot, including the rudder. Easier still if it can be done from a pontoon.

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I seem to recall there was an article about this in one of the mags sometime last year, and that it was basically favourable. They device itself has a "wing" section that holds it against the hull - getting the right boatspeed is important to successful working.

Unfortunately the brush method won't work on my hull - you just can't reach the waterline with a brush from the deck. I suppose I could make an articulated brush handle, but even then getting sufficient pressure on would be tricky

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I agree, the top few feet are always the problem.

I have an all tide mooring which seems to foul x4 worse than my pals in marinas in the same river. I clean the undersides from my tender quite regularly ( I have to ) but no matter what I use, clouds of antifoul come off with the ensuing problems.

This year I have gone for a white antifoul in the hope that it will reflect heat. I have even considered a weighted 'skirt' after leaving the mooring.

One has to assume that antifoul will probably become weaker as manufacturers lose the march on EU controls. I am thinking of this device more in terms od doing away with antifoul althogether.

Regards

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Thanks Bedouin - sounds encouraging.

I have a long keel which I love, but the extra surface area is a killer when fouled compared to modern hulls.

I might ring the makers up and declare that I am an official scuttle ' tut reviewer and see how it works.


Regards



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I'm with you on all of that. Except that we have always used Dover White, white or light grey antifouling and I cannot say that it has performed very well. It seems to me that antifouling has reached the stage where it is almost entirely ineffective. I have changed from years of using eroding A/F to a hard type, on the basis that I need to scrub several times per season and all of the eroding stuff was gone by August.

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