Coppercoat v Copperplus or WHY?

boatmike

boatmike

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Sticking my neck out here. I don't want to start a trade war between suppliers or start a thread slagging off any commercial business but I invite informed opinions. There have been several threads recently regarding the efficacy of Coppercoat and I am impressed by everything I hear other than the price which for 11 litres which I am advised I need comes to nearly £1,000 for my boat. There appear to be other products which claim to be similar and appear to be considerably cheaper. Does anyone have any first hand opinions of these please?
I am aware that other products have come and gone from the market with varying success in the past and there will obviously be opinions of all sorts out there. Without wishing to appear rude though I only want to hear from people who have some actual experience of alternatives (good or bad) rather than hearsay. In particular has anyone used reactive resins copperplus?
 
The cost bit needs to be put in perspective. Having just got a quote for cleaning, epoxy and Coppercoat and the cost of the materials for the final coat was about 25% of the total cost. Obviously this varies according to how much you do yourself as most of the rest was labour, haul out and storage costs.

Will be interested to see any feedback on the cheaper alternatives.
 
Tranona said:
The cost bit needs to be put in perspective. Having just got a quote for cleaning, epoxy and Coppercoat and the cost of the materials for the final coat was about 25% of the total cost. Obviously this varies according to how much you do yourself as most of the rest was labour, haul out and storage costs.

Will be interested to see any feedback on the cheaper alternatives.
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Understand that Tranona but the boat is already ashore in the middle of a substantial refit. I have already prepared it down to bare hull. All labour costs are down to the occasional beer and cheese and pickle sandwich cos it's me. Oh and I am a well known tight**** with money!
 
sportsfisher said:
I have to say I'm biased as I am on my fourth boat with Coppercoat. I dont know anyone with Copperplus but a quick google search yielded this... !

http://www.samarang.com/Diary/Copperplus.htm
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Er Yes! That does not give confidence. Also your experience with Coppercoat on 4 boats is duly noted. I am certainly not inclined to experiment to save money unless I can be sure the alternative is going to work. I just thought I would use the forum to express opinions of cheaper alternatives before parting with cash!
 
I have coppercoat on Jissel, but as she sits in the mud for a couple of hours a tide, it works about as well as everything else I've tried, which is to say it doesn't :( To be fair, the supplier does say it isn't suitable for such use. I moved to the (very cheap) tidal berth the year after I put it on.

OTOH, a friend's boat that lives in a marina has had the same stuff since new (7 years) and it stays clean.

Fred drift: If anyone has a solution to the problem of dissuading barnacles and other Klingons on tidal berths, I'd love to know - the only solution I've found is to scrub off every couple of months :rolleyes:
 
As I've reported before, everyone I know personally that have used Coppercoat has been very satisfied with it. We have had out boat Coppercoated from new, but it is far too soon to make any judgement as to its success for us. Application is a fairly specialist task - we had it done professionally - I'm not sure I would have tried to do it myself!
 
LadyInBed said:
Micron 2.5Lt A/F @ £89.50 so for 11 ltrs £393.80
If you A/F every year, then the coppercoat has paid for itself in 3 years!
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Not sure how valid that is - you apply a large number of coats of Coppercoat - if he needs 11 litres for his boat, then I would assume that you could get away with less than half of that with any standard AF.
 
maby said:
Not sure how valid that is - you apply a large number of coats of Coppercoat - if he needs 11 litres for his boat, then I would assume that you could get away with less than half of that with any standard AF.
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That's correct.... saved me the trouble of saying it. But as I said in a previous thread, the saving is only one aspect. saving the trouble of AF every year is priceless.....
 
My boat was Coppercoated last year, and it has not worked. The next boat to me on the trot had it done 3 years ago and it works fine. Some boats in the club it works, other dont- no one has any idea why.
Spent a lovely day in the rain sanding down the copper coat to activate it.
My advice therefore is that you may have success, or may not.
The process explained to me is that the epoxy is water soluble and slowly erodes exposing the copper. Why it sometimes works is a mystery
 
pappaecho said:
My boat was Coppercoated last year, and it has not worked. The next boat to me on the trot had it done 3 years ago and it works fine. Some boats in the club it works, other dont- no one has any idea why.
Spent a lovely day in the rain sanding down the copper coat to activate it.
My advice therefore is that you may have success, or may not.
The process explained to me is that the epoxy is water soluble and slowly erodes exposing the copper. Why it sometimes works is a mystery
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Interesting..... avoiding questions relating to epoxy being water soluble (?) can you identify differences between your experience and the other boat?
Specifically

1. Was either yours or his done professionally or DIY?
2. Do both boats get the same usage or is one used more that the other? (I believe with any antifouling a boat that remains static for a long time will never fare as well as one that is used constantly).
3. As yours was only done last year was it in fact sanded off after application or just painted and launched?
4. Has the other boat been sanded?
 
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Our boat was professionally coppercoated at the beginning of last season, and we have been very happy with it. We have found it to work better than conventional (XM HX3000) antifouling, permanantly afloat in Portsmouth harbour. I should point out that "better than" does not mean it is perfect, we still get a layer of slime, but less weed than with the antifouling, and no barnykulls. I gave it rub over with scotchbright, used wet, a week or so after it was applied last year. The yard pressure washed it when she came out at the end of last season, and appart from that, it wasn't touched before launching again. Boat gets "normal" use, ie generally every other weekend, plus a few weeks for longer trips, but may get left for say 4 wks if the weather is bad.

A few other points, the bottom is now a lot smoother than it was with umpteen years buildup of lumpy antifouling, and we get an extra 0.2-0.3 kts of boat speed. I also couldn't help feeling smug this winter just gone, seeing others in the yard doing their antifouling. Finally, the chap who applied it (Paul at Symblast) has copper coated his own boat, which is quite a good advert!
 
Here's my guess:

CCoat applied by experienced professionals will always outperform amateur attempts, however well intentioned and financially constrained they may be.
 
oldvarnish said:
Here's my guess:

CCoat applied by experienced professionals will always outperform amateur attempts, however well intentioned and financially constrained they may be.
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Fundamentally, it's just a case of painting it on and it should be just as feasible for an amateur to do that as a professional. I think there are two primary considerations at play in the relative success. Firstly, it is necessary to apply all the coats (up to five of them) in quick succession - you start at one end and, on a moderate sized boat, by the time you get to the other end it is time to start at the beginning again. This is hard work and if you are trying to do it on your own, you are probably going to flag at some point. You really need one or more companions, one to do the mixing and someone else to take a turn at applying the stuff.

The other consideration - and possibly the more significant - is the environment in which you apply it. Too cold, too hot, too humid - all can screw it up. When ours was done, it was hauled into a large, closed, temperature and humidity controlled shed which gave the team time and freedom to do it in a relaxed manner. If you reckon that for a medium sized boat it will take fifteen hours or more between starting and getting the coating sufficiently set that if can withstand cold or damp, then there's plenty of scope for it all going wrong in the British climate!
 
pappaecho said:
My boat was Coppercoated last year, and it has not worked. The next boat to me on the trot had it done 3 years ago and it works fine. Some boats in the club it works, other dont- no one has any idea why.
Spent a lovely day in the rain sanding down the copper coat to activate it.
My advice therefore is that you may have success, or may not.
The process explained to me is that the epoxy is water soluble and slowly erodes exposing the copper. Why it sometimes works is a mystery
Click to expand...

I considered Coppercoating last winter as I had taken the hull back to gelcoat but asking round the club produced the same sort of report as above. One owner swore by it and was on his second coppercoated boat, several others had given up after a couple of seasons and put conventional antifoul over the coppercoat.

The boat next to me was done over the winter and to date his fouling is much worse than mine with conventional antifouling.
 
I copper coated this year. So far well pleased with zero growth anywhere.

CAUTION: ensure the cc is applied at maximum dilution.... Even if it requires an extra coat to get the desired result. Application as it pours from the container results in too thick a coat and RUNS!

GL
 
pappaecho said:
My boat was Coppercoated last year, and it has not worked. The next boat to me on the trot had it done 3 years ago and it works fine.
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When I was researching coppercoat to put on our boat, I found out that results in the first year can vary. In the first year the amount of copper exposed isn't at it's maximum, and therefore the coppercoat isn't at full strength.

As more of the epoxy erodes, more copper is exposed and it gets up to full working strength and remains there. This might explain why your pals boat in its third year is working so much better.

So don't be put off by your results this year....I'm expecting the first year to be disappointing...If it's not I'll be happy :)
 
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