Blasting away the Antifoul - a horrible job

[DickB]

My 48' yacht is now 18 years old so I figured I needed to check the moisture levels and get rid of the 18 layers of antifoul. I did consider doing this myself either using chemicals or scraping, but opted for getting it sand blasted. (My yacht is based in Gosport and is now sitting in pride of place at Trafalgar Wharf).

This is a scary process since the blasting could easily blast away the gel coat. After doing a LOT of market research by speaking to a LOT of folk about who was best I ended up employing a guy named Paul Baker. He uses sand and he has a huge towable compressor and all the gear to do the job.

I originally wanted a guy who uses the Farrow System as I understand it is less fierce but the company who used it (ARC) have now dissolved (!) and the machine has been taken over by a company called "Black & White Blasting". After arranging several dates to do the job (weather delayed us) the guy basically seemed to disappear and didn't answer the phone or reply to emails. I never found out what happened there. Very odd!

Anyway I asked the marina and they recommended this guy Paul Baker who has actually done a first class job. No damage the gel coat and she now has a beautiful white bottom! You can see her from the A27 passing across the north end of Portsmouth harbour right by the Drystack.

Anyway if you are considering this job I would recommend this guy. His email address is "paulnbaker@gmail.com" . He is quite a character and talks the hind legs off a donkey but he was not expensive and did a good job.

pm me if you want more detail...

cheers,

Dick

ps - Just a happy client... Nothing else!

 

[vyv_cox]

Are you certain about the sand? It's my understanding that blasting with sand is illegal almost worldwide due to the risk of silicosis. There are many alternative blast media, such as copper slag and alumina but one of the best I have seen for boat hulls is small particles of plastic, used by the Evros yard in Leros.

 

[laika]

There are many alternative blast media, such as copper slag and alumina but one of the best I have seen for boat hulls is small particles of plastic, used by the Evros yard in Leros.

Do you (or anyone) have a link to a reference for what the pros/cons are for different methods (12m GRP boat in my case)? This is something I'd like to have done this year but have had different people variously advocating CO2 and soda.

 

[Elessar]

My 48' yacht is now 18 years old so I figured I needed to check the moisture levels and get rid of the 18 layers of antifoul. I did consider doing this myself either using chemicals or scraping, but opted for getting it sand blasted. (My yacht is based in Gosport and is now sitting in pride of place at Trafalgar Wharf).

This is a scary process since the blasting could easily blast away the gel coat. After doing a LOT of market research by speaking to a LOT of folk about who was best I ended up employing a guy named Paul Baker. He uses sand and he has a huge towable compressor and all the gear to do the job.

I originally wanted a guy who uses the Farrow System as I understand it is less fierce but the company who used it (ARC) have now dissolved (!) and the machine has been taken over by a company called "Black & White Blasting". After arranging several dates to do the job (weather delayed us) the guy basically seemed to disappear and didn't answer the phone or reply to emails. I never found out what happened there. Very odd!

Anyway I asked the marina and they recommended this guy Paul Baker who has actually done a first class job. No damage the gel coat and she now has a beautiful white bottom! You can see her from the A27 passing across the north end of Portsmouth harbour right by the Drystack.

Anyway if you are considering this job I would recommend this guy. His email address is "paulnbaker@gmail.com" . He is quite a character and talks the hind legs off a donkey but he was not expensive and did a good job.

pm me if you want more detail...

cheers,

Dick

ps - Just a happy client... Nothing else!

Yep, I was the owner of ARC and it was bought out by the staff.
They are trading as black and white blasting and I can vouch for their ability to do the job. It seems they have underestimated how difficult it is to return phone calls etc whilst actually blasting.

Interesting that there is now a new player in the market with recommendations. Black and White may be missing a trick.............

Can't work out how to change my sig or the ARC link would have gone.

 

[haydude]

Are you certain about the sand? It's my understanding that blasting with sand is illegal almost worldwide due to the risk of silicosis. There are many alternative blast media, such as copper slag and alumina but one of the best I have seen for boat hulls is small particles of plastic, used by the Evros yard in Leros.

Would the boat get silicosis?

 

[Tomaret]

Interesting that there is now a new player in the market with recommendations.

I used Symblast (Southern Blast Ltd) last year on my keel to take off antifoul and coating, bringing it back to the cast iron. They did a great job, left the site clean and the work coated with Fertan.

 

[vyv_cox]

Would the boat get silicosis?

The list of ailments affecting boats is almost limitless. Spending money usually fixes them.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Are you certain about the sand? It's my understanding that blasting with sand is illegal almost worldwide due to the risk of silicosis. There are many alternative blast media, such as copper slag and alumina but one of the best I have seen for boat hulls is small particles of plastic, used by the Evros yard in Leros.

The guy who did mine (Aquablast Marine) did an excellent job with olivine, varying the pressure etc. to get the best results on both GRP and cast iron. I gather olivine has the advantage of having a breaking easily along one direction of the crystals, so it shatters on impact. Capricious' bottom was ideally prepared for the application of Coppercoat by this means.

 

[Elessar]

I used Symblast (Southern Blast Ltd) last year on my keel to take off antifoul and coating, bringing it back to the cast iron. They did a great job, left the site clean and the work coated with Fertan.

yes they've been around for a long time

 

[Elessar]

Are you certain about the sand? It's my understanding that blasting with sand is illegal almost worldwide due to the risk of silicosis. There are many alternative blast media, such as copper slag and alumina but one of the best I have seen for boat hulls is small particles of plastic, used by the Evros yard in Leros.

you can get low silica sand, but ordinary sand is very dangerous.

at ARC we started with olivine as recommended by the farrow system and moved onto ground down bottles ex of the recycling bin. Operationally it seemed identical to olivine.

 

[DickB]

Hmmm, I say sand but in all honesty I am not sure quite what he used but it certainly worked.

I was sorry about Black & White blasting because the one phone call I had was very friendly but after that I could never get hold of them. Hey ho, that's life eh!!!

I also forgot to mention that the moisture content was around 3% which I was quite happy about.

All in all a good result...

cheers,

Dick