Back to the UK for a winter refit

[Hurricane]

As a complete change of subject, I'm being battered with conflicting advice about what to do about 10 years of antifoul. The yard are recommending Symblast, who are (a) quoting £720+vat but (b) are saying that an epoxy treatment will be required after blasting. Paul the grp man suggested scraping the old antifoul off by hand, but after trying a patch he's now advising that manual scraping is going to take too long. Jim Pritchard the surveyor suggested sanding the antifoul back a bit before applying new - but this ended up just instantly clogging up the sandpaper.

I like the idea of scraping it off but it seems very labour intensive and will end up costing not much less than blasting. My concern with blasting is the collateral damage - and I don't really understand what epoxy treatment means.

What (TF) now skipper??

Slurry blast and Coppercoat!!

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

If you have it blasted have you considered Coppercoat?

Slurry blast and Coppercoat!!

Coppercoat with outdrives??

 

[Hurricane]

Back on cameras
When I was thinking about doing it this morning, I came across these.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DIY-Wifi-...214?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item1e943ab4c6

Pick up power from the windlass
Then using one of these to stabilise the power.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Amperor-1...095?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3cbbd0e457
I've use these stabilisers in lots of places on the boat - docking cameras are one case.
BTW - you do need to protect these low cost cams from our unpredictable power supply.

Being WiFi, it would feed into my ships LAN and be viewable on any of my screens.
Others could use their tablets as displays.

Alternatively, there are devices like these.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Boscam-FP...164?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item1e99fedf04
Recommended for quadcopters - does that touch a nerve???

 

[Hurricane]

Coppercoat with outdrives??

Why not?
Ask Mark.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Paul the grp man suggested scraping the old antifoul off by hand, but after trying a patch he's now advising that manual scraping is going to take too long.

I once scraped the old antifoul off the hull of a Turbo 36 I used to own and ended up in hospital. Like a good boy, I started off using eye protection but soon found I couldn't see anything so I took off the goggles. A couple of hours later I was in hospital with a nurse picking bits of old antifoul out of my eyes. Even without that, it was a horrible time consuming job because a lot of the time you're working on your back. Never again.

I would question why you need to do this? The weight of 10 layers of antifoul can't be more than a few kilos (somebody once did work it out on the forum - probably jfm?). If eroding antifoul has been used in the past, then most of it will have eroded anyway! Personally I would just scrape off any loose bits, make sure that what's left is solid, give it a quick once over with some sandpaper to give it a key and apply new paint over the top, preferably the same type as applied before

 

[Nick_H]

Coppercoat with outdrives??

I had the Windy Coppercoated and it worked well.

I understand the point, that if you have to lift the boat every year to service the drives anyway, you don't get the saving in lift costs, but tbh if you compare Coppercoating at UK rates with antifouling at SoF rates, even excluding the lift costs I think you'll be quids in in no time.

I recently used Ellesar's co. to CC my boat here, and they did a good job and the price seemed fairly keen.

 

[jfm]

I used hard a/f (not knowing any better) on my first sq58 2004-9 but learned that it builds up too thick. Since then I've used soft/eroding on all my boats from new. So I'd bite the bullet, have it blasted, then painted in epoxy paint, then soft-antifouled and you'll be good to go forever with your a/foul rubbing off nicely as you drive. Put extra coats on leading edges of course

The epoxy must be to repair pinholes caused by the blast. You might find there is some cya going on. I mean, you might find after the blast your gelcoat will be fine and you can just prime it then micron 77 it. Mark/Elessar does blasting as well as CC, iirc.

I'm not a fan of CC. It grows more slime than M77, so its £££ benefit (of needing just a jetwash and a key, not a recoat, each year) is potentially eaten up in fuel. M77 stays slime free all year. I also don't like the verdigris colour of CC. Hence I think M77 paint is better, but each to their own of course

I'll post a few pics of my M77 paint as the boat was lifted 2 weeks ago, on my refit HT thread

 

[benjenbav]

WRT the ancam retro-fitting it should be possible to get a solar powered camera and avoid all wiring but - as I chanced to be looking for something similar for a little springwatch project - they all seem to come in camoflage colours and bundled with a hunting rifle. But, in theory, solar power and wireless wifi should be a slam dunk.

 

[DAW]

We faced the same dilemma last year - boat nearly 9 years old, with multiple layers of old hard antifoul that looked terrible and provided a nice rough surface for everything to adhere to. We opted for sandblasting, two coats of epoxy primer and multiple coats of self-polishing antifoul (International Micron 77). Very happy with the results - boat looks like new, we gained 3-4 knots top speed when clean (compared with usual lift, clean and antifoul) and the bottom stayed almost totally clean for the whole of last summer (in SoF).

Not sure what you mean by collateral damage - we watched some of the work being done and they were meticulous about sealing all thru-hull fittings and wrapping props, etc. before starting. The work was done in SoF using "hydrogommage" which uses some sort of helical motion to achieve soft abrasion. It seemed to be totally controllable and they were able to remove the old antifoul leaving the underlying gel coat almost totally intact. There was no dust or dirt anywhere inside the boat when they'd finished. Certainly not cheap though.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

I used hard a/f (not knowing any better) on my first sq58 2004-9 but learned that it builds up too thick. Since then I've used soft/eroding on all my boats from new. So I'd bite the bullet, have it blasted, then painted in epoxy paint, then soft-antifouled and you'll be good to go forever with your a/foul rubbing off nicely as you drive. Put extra coats on leading edges of course

The epoxy must be to repair pinholes caused by the blast. You might find there is some cya going on. I mean, you might find after the blast your gelcoat will be fine and you can just prime it then micron 77 it. Mark/Elessar does blasting as well as CC, iirc.

I'm not a fan of CC. It grows more slime than M77, so its £££ benefit (of needing just a jetwash and a key, not a recoat, each year) is potentially eaten up in fuel. M77 stays slime free all year. I also don't like the verdigris colour of CC. Hence I think M77 paint is better, but each to their own of course

I'll post a few pics of my M77 paint as the boat was lifted 2 weeks ago, on my refit HT thread

I'm happy to be corrected on this, but my understanding was that Mark/Elessar is not involved with ARC at all any more.

I'm waiting for Symblast to give me a price for epoxy as well. Vince the awesome valeter is already lined up for the antifouling and topsides polishing for the week of launch.

You said this:

you might find after the blast your gelcoat will be fine

Forgive my ignorance - but is it as obvious as you can see the pin hole damage, if it occurs? ie it's not the case that you need to epoxy regardless?

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

We faced the same dilemma last year - boat nearly 9 years old, with multiple layers of old hard antifoul that looked terrible and provided a nice rough surface for everything to adhere to. We opted for sandblasting, two coats of epoxy primer and multiple coats of self-polishing antifoul (International Micron 77). Very happy with the results - boat looks like new, we gained 3-4 knots top speed when clean (compared with usual lift, clean and antifoul) and the bottom stayed almost totally clean for the whole of last summer (in SoF).

Not sure what you mean by collateral damage - we watched some of the work being done and they were meticulous about sealing all thru-hull fittings and wrapping props, etc. before starting. The work was done in SoF using "hydrogommage" which uses some sort of helical motion to achieve soft abrasion. It seemed to be totally controllable and they were able to remove the old antifoul leaving the underlying gel coat almost totally intact. There was no dust or dirt anywhere inside the boat when they'd finished. Certainly not cheap though.

What I meant by collateral damage is damage to the hull caused by the blasting (discussed above as pin-holing).

Why two coats of epoxy? (ie why not just one?)

 

[jfm]

Forgive my ignorance - but is it as obvious as you can see the pin hole damage, if it occurs? ie it's not the case that you need to epoxy regardless?

I don't know J. I just cannot see how wet slurry is going to make invisible pricks that pierce the gelcoat and expose the mat underneath, but that's just intuition guesswork. DAW's write up above seems to say the same. So I think there is cya (and money) in the epoxy layer. Still, you gotta apply a primer coat anyway to the fresh GRP, before the a/foul paint, so might as well spend extra £50 on epoxy paint not cheapie primer, as the labour is the same. But I'd def switch to M77 for the main event paint, because it rubs off so never thickens up.

Here's M77 after 11 months in the water, at my lift out 2 weeks ago. The paint under the hull is like it was just applied. No growth, no slime, no nothing. Cleaner than CC would be

 

[benjenbav]

I don't know J. I just cannot see how wet slurry is going to make invisible pricks that pierce the gelcoat and expose the mat underneath, but that's just intuition guesswork. DAW's write up above seems to say the same. So I think there is cya (and money) in the epoxy layer. Still, you gotta apply a primer coat anyway to the fresh GRP, before the a/foul paint, so might as well spend extra £50 on epoxy paint not cheapie primer, as the labour is the same. But I'd def switch to M77 for the main event paint, because it rubs off so never thickens up.

Here's M77 after 11 months in the water, at my lift out 2 weeks ago. The paint under the hull is like it was just applied. No growth, no slime, no nothing. Cleaner than CC would be

Amazing result J - almost as clean as the Heogh Osaka the owners of which, I guess, have access to stuff us leisure users can only dream about.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

WRT the ancam retro-fitting it should be possible to get a solar powered camera and avoid all wiring but - as I chanced to be looking for something similar for a little springwatch project - they all seem to come in camoflage colours and bundled with a hunting rifle. But, in theory, solar power and wireless wifi should be a slam dunk.

isn't this the logical conclusion of your line of thinking here?



Could be the ideal pulpit accessory for the Hamble scramble...

 

[DAW]

Not sure why the two coats of epoxy - the work was specified by Sunseeker maintenance people in La Napoule and done by the guardiennage company (they did the lift, clean and antifoul, but subcontracted the blasting). I've just looked back at the invoice and the cost to apply the additional coat of epoxy primer must have been about EUR 800 for labour and materials. The hull length at the waterline is over 50 feet, so at SoF prices it seemed reasonable to me.

 

[petem]

I'm probably 10 years out of date but I always thought eroding AF was unsuitable for fast boats. JFM (cruising at 25kn?) is obviously having good results. Is the same true for boats cruising in the 30-35kn range?

 

[DAW]

We're typically in the 25-30kn range, but a friend with a Superhawk 43 who is usually 30kn+ (and occasionally up to 40kn) also uses Micron 77 in SoF with good results. By the end of the season there is some growth/slime on areas just below the surface which are exposed to direct sunlight, but otherwise the bottom stays almost totally clear. Well worth the extra!!

 

[jfm]

I'm probably 10 years out of date but I always thought eroding AF was unsuitable for fast boats. JFM (cruising at 25kn?) is obviously having good results. Is the same true for boats cruising in the 30-35kn range?

Yup I've heard that advice 100x Pete but I don't follow it and find it completely wrong in the 25knot zone, and know others who have no problem in 35 knots. Of course, it is a function not of speed but of speed x hours. If I did 2000 not 200 hours @ 23 knots I might have a problem, but then I'd just apply more layers of paint, not use hard a/f.

With hard a/f, the active stuff gets used up leaving a layer of totally useless thick dead paint. That's just a crummy way to go.

 

[MYAG]

I'm probably 10 years out of date but I always thought eroding AF was unsuitable for fast boats. JFM (cruising at 25kn?) is obviously having good results. Is the same true for boats cruising in the 30-35kn range?

No you're not out of date, that's what it says on the Micron 77 advice sheet from International Paints. However I have been using the 77 (and the 66 before it) for yonks, I do a fair mileage each year and frequently in the upper 20's. Never had an issue with it eroding off prematurely and my hull cleanliness looks just like JFM's in the pcs above after a year. In fact I didn't antifoul her last year so this will be the second year for the 77 on my boat. The manufacturer says it's good for 2/3 years, so we will see when it's lifted in a couple of months time. I'll take some pcs and post.

 

[Illusion]

Not sure I'd go with a polishing antifoul like M77 on a 30kn + powerboat?
From personal experience by the time we'd got to the end of the season with maybe one mid season lift and scrub, there wasn't too much paint left.
As you may remember, with Illusion our P40 after the first season from new, we had the original antifoul blasted off and then coppercoated with no issues and the finish was fantastic and smooth. So as has already been said, I'm sure you'd have no issues going down this route. Negatives for me was the colour and the initial cost, but you have to take a longer term view.

I'm still considering coppercoat again for Breeze, but I think this year I'll go for black Interspeed Ultra, which is a hard antifoul and allows us to maintain it better over the course of the year. The protection was also very good on a previous boat and also it seems with other Solent based Mobos. Just a shame International don't do that really nice very dark blue colour that works so well with Fairline blue hulls. I believe you have to go the Hempel route for this colour?