Copper Coat light abrasion before first season?

[seumask]

The yard that has recently cooper coated our boat advised that it is necessary to lightly abraid the new copper coat before we put the boat in the next week or so. The surface is not perfectly smooth and I'm not sure weather to use sand paper (400 grade) where it will be dificult to abraid the hollows or a more flexible scotchbrite type scourer which does appear to get into the hollows but seems to scratch the surface more lightly. Any experience or advise on what might be best.
I understand that this abrasion is needed to expose some of the copper granuals to allow the copper to work.

 

[PCUK]

Some say abrade some say it's not necessary.
I do mine at the start of the season and the scourer is the easiest to use for a light rub.

 

[savageseadog]

Scotchbrite is the way to go on abrasion, Is it necessary? I don't know. Compounds of copper that develop in air would be different to those that form in the sea but all copper compounds are an antifoul I would have thought.

 

[mormargh]

Thats' right and would also recommend the Scotchbrite route. We use a "Dishmatic" bought from Tesco with the green pad and fill the handle with water. Also have a bucket of fresh handy and slosh the Dishmatic in it occasionally.

 

[Jonny_H]

We have Coppercoat ... the previous owner swore by Scotchbrite before re-launch. We forgot last year, we do seem to have quite a lot of slime on the hull, but not too bad considering she's been in for 12 months and spent the last 7 in the marina without moving!

She's coming out today - so I'll let you know how big the pile of weed/slime is when the yard have pressure washer her off!

We are intending to scotchbrite her before relaunch (no more than a week I've been told), and will also touch in any thin areas of coppercoat or areas that are a little flakey (we have a touch up pack we use).

Jonny

 

[Lizzie_B]

we stay in all year and just give a jet wash assisted with a good stiff yard broom while in the slings and then straight back in. The only part that needed any special attention was the prop, depthsounder and log.

It was applied in may 1999.. and seems as good as new at the moment
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[mormargh]

Nice craft.

 

[catmandoo]

I never had any success with my coppercoat here in the med where the growth was phenominal . If you have to go to the expense of having the boat out at the end of each year to lightly abrade it then you might as well apply a cheap coating

On the other hand I have now removed all of mine and am going to put on a static antifoul such as used on buoys and pontoons on the basis that since most boats spend their time at anchor or in a marina the amount of time sailing is in fact negligeable in comparison

 

[BlueChip]

We coppercoated last year and weren't told to abrade. It really didnt work very well and we complained. We were told that as the coating is still the original browny colour the surface hadn't been abraded and that unless the copper is exposed and oxidises shown by a greeny colour its not working. They told me its only necessary to abrade it once when the boat is first coated to expose raw copper on the surface through the resin. Scotchbright pads were recomended. Coppercoat were at the London boat show and made a point of talking about this technique and showing it on their stand, they even gave us a couple of pads to do it with.

 

[john_morris_uk]

When coppercoat supplied the materials to do our boat, they also supplied some green 'scotchbrite' pads to abrade it with before the first launch.

 

[Jonny_H]

SWMBO has just finished scotchbrite'ing ours - 1 week to launch (hopefully) - 11 years old, wasn't abraded last season and has spent 12 months in the water, the last 7 of which have been in a marina with very muddy water - very thin film of slime which was easily pressure washed off.

Jonny