Ban on copper based antifouling.

Salty John

Salty John

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I see that California is set to become the second US state to ban copper based antifouling on recreational boats.

"When the camel gets his head in the tent his body will surely follow" - I hope the paint manufacturers are feverishly working at an effective alternative.
 
Googling it finds that evidence as to the environmental effects of copper seems to be very thin. The ban seems largely to be based upon the fact that high levels of copper were detected rather than observations that sea creatures were being harmed. http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/registration/reevaluation/chemicals/antifoulant_paints.htm

Superbly optimistic statement:- 'The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Christine Kehoe of San Diego, said the delayed implementation would allow plenty of time for paint manufacturers to develop alternative coatings and boat owners to apply them.' The plan is that copper will be banned for leisure boat owners by 2018! http://www.paintsquare.com/news/?fuseaction=view&id=5739&nl_versionid=989
 
Well simple logic to me would suggest that any coating on a boat to stop the growth of weed and shell fish is going to polute the environement and be detrimental to wanted weed and shell fish in the water. So we will never get an environmentally safe anti fouling paint. The best I can hope for is an a/f paint that stays on and continues to work on the hull hence does not polute. Because we would not need to replace it the manufacturers would not want to sell that product. (if it were possible to produce such).
We may pin our hopes on ultrasonic vibrations to deter weed but so far that is by no means successful. olewill
 
I mentioned in another posting that the commercial cats operating out of Cairns no longer use any anti fouling paints.

They use divers to clean and then polish the underwater areas, they report better performance as a benefit.
I suspect the avoidance of the lift out and loss of income would have a bearing on this though.

Good luck and fair winds. :)
 
William_H said:
Well simple logic to me would suggest that any coating on a boat to stop the growth of weed and shell fish is going to polute the environement and be detrimental to wanted weed and shell fish in the water. So we will never get an environmentally safe anti fouling paint. The best I can hope for is an a/f paint that stays on and continues to work on the hull hence does not polute. Because we would not need to replace it the manufacturers would not want to sell that product. (if it were possible to produce such).
We may pin our hopes on ultrasonic vibrations to deter weed but so far that is by no means successful. olewill
Click to expand...

My Jaycar ultrasonic a/f is still working after 11 months and still no barnies - I do have Cu based a/f as well though.
Sailorbaz
 
William_H said:
Well simple logic to me would suggest that any coating on a boat to stop the growth of weed and shell fish is going to polute the environement and be detrimental to wanted weed and shell fish in the water. So we will never get an environmentally safe anti fouling paint. The best I can hope for is an a/f paint that stays on and continues to work on the hull hence does not polute. Because we would not need to replace it the manufacturers would not want to sell that product. (if it were possible to produce such). ...
Click to expand...

I agree with your logic, and doubt that any antifouling agent operating by toxicity will ever ‘stay on’ the hull completely, as it seems unlikely that any toxicant capable of being taken up by a fouling organism will not also have some solubility in sea water.

Interestingly, copper toxicity was raised in a recent BBC report (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29746880) on ocean acidification. It mentioned University of Exeter research which found that increased acidity enhanced copper toxicity to lugworms. One of the researchers was reported as saying “It’s a bit of a shock, frankly. It means the effects of ocean acidification may be even more serious than we previously thought. We need to look with new eyes at things which we thought were not vulnerable.”

It has been known for many decades that the aquatic toxicity of copper is often best predicted by the free cupric ion concentration, and that that typically increases (as a proportion of the total dissolved copper concentration) as pH decreases. But what appears to have surprised the reseachers (the original paper is at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es502739m#showRef) was that pH affected copper toxicity to a species which experiences relatively wide pH variations naturally: “Our results are perhaps surprising for an intertidal polychaete, as an emerging paradigm within OA research suggests that any organism experiencing natural variability in pH conditions within their habitat will be more resilient to future OA.”

I think we may expect continued interest in copper and other heavy metals in sea water in the light of concerns about OA - although, with regard to that specific piece of research, the paper does note in its conclusions that “Short-term “shock” exposure experiments cannot simply be scaled-up for century-scale responses of organisms to OA ...”.
 
Used Trilux for years...

We've used Trilux 33 for years on the hull of a 40ft racer/cruiser.

There is no copper..

It's hard and scrubable, works better than the normal antfoul combating slime and growth and it comes in a vivid white which means you can see the foils and hull. Simple run the brush over it to remove any slime...

No electrolysis issues on skin fittings, sail drive or rudder stock.

It's also quite thick so covers and fills any minor scratches and Because it is hard you can get an almost polished finish which helps keeping the fouling off..
 
The Trilux 33 safety sheet states - Environmental hazards : Very toxic to aquatic organisms, may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic
environment.
 
oldsaltoz said:
I mentioned in another posting that the commercial cats operating out of Cairns no longer use any anti fouling paints.

They use divers to clean and then polish the underwater areas, they report better performance as a benefit.
I suspect the avoidance of the lift out and loss of income would have a bearing on this though.
Click to expand...
I wonder how much that costs?

Quite sure that my time and a few coats of the cheapest antifoul I can find is a lot less than employing a diver for a monthly clean.
 
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