How much effect can fouling have?

[Daydream believer]

I have never seen any claims about Coppercoat being a superior antifouling - just that it does not deteriorate in effectiveness over time and typically remains effective for up to 10 times longer than conventional antifoul. In heavy fouling areas it benefits from a mid year jetwash just like most other AF. That is all my Coppercoat needed in 6 years despite being in the water year round except for up to 2 weeks mid summer.

I gave up on the Coppercoat on the keel due to rust penetration in isolated spots. That was probably due to my missunderstanding of the original instructions of the metal primer & not to the coppercoat. However, the keel has had 4 lots of copper coat & different primers. Still no improvement.
I now use Shogun 33 on the keel as it is relatively easy to do a fin keel. It performs SIGNIFICANTLY better than the coppercoat on the hull. The coppercoat lasts 8 weeks max. then jetwash is needed.

 

[Tranona]

I gave up on the Coppercoat on the keel due to rust penetration in isolated spots. That was probably due to my missunderstanding of the original instructions of the metal primer & not to the coppercoat. However, the keel has had 4 lots of copper coat & different primers. Still no improvement.
I now use Shogun 33 on the keel as it is relatively easy to do a fin keel. It performs SIGNIFICANTLY better than the coppercoat on the hull. The coppercoat lasts 8 weeks max. then jetwash is needed.

Have you followed the instructions to re-activate it?

 

[Daydream believer]

Have you followed the instructions to re-activate it?

Many times

 

[RobWard]

Hmm, in response to answers here had the boat lifted yesterday for a racing scrub - actually, a racing scrape. Suprised the boat was able to move at all! In my defence, I can only say that when we moored in Cardiff Bay, we never saw a barnacle from one year to the next.

 

[Mark-1]

Just want to add my story of woe.

The boat went in a month late and I've still got thick visible weed now, and my STW is glacial. It's on a drying mooring - I'm sorely tempted to nip down there at a low tide with some Glysophate in a garden sprayer. At least I'll know if it works when my kids write to me in prison.

In past years I've tried a mid season pressure wash. Literally two weeks later there were literally trails of weed an inch long grown back.

Like the poster above I find antifouling a massive hassle. I have to find two (rare) dryish winters days when I'm free and get soaking wet on wet ground and get covered in antifoul twice. I often ponder if it would be less hassle to pressure wash it monthly in the Summer *or* simply pressure wash it the week before I know I'm going to use it.

...and then there's gull poo.

 

[Daydream believer]

I have coppercoat- which is not as good as most decent antifoul paints.
Due to ill health I have had to cut short my sailing this year. Since the last launching, I have managed trips to Ipswich, Plus a month doing Ostend, round to Dieppe, Dover & back to Bradwell. So the boat has not sat idle.
Having launched on 21 June, by 28 August the boat was so badly weeded that it lost almost .5 kt under power. Not unusual for the Coppercoat.
In the marina there was long strands at the waterline & clearly full hairy growth as far as I could see lower down.
The odd thing is, that this week I looked at the hull. The long strands at the waterline have gone. The furry stuff lower down is now somewhat less.
I am sure that the Coppercoat is not responsible. It has been warm so weed normally thrives. But is it something to do with the weed I collected in France & Belgium dying in UK water, or has the season for weed growth suddenly changed?
I have not been in any fresh water locations

 

[B27]

Just want to add my story of woe.

The boat went in a month late and I've still got thick visible weed now, and my STW is glacial. It's on a drying mooring - I'm sorely tempted to nip down there at a low tide with some Glysophate in a garden sprayer. At least I'll know if it works when my kids write to me in prison.

In past years I've tried a mid season pressure wash. Literally two weeks later there were literally trails of weed an inch long grown back.

Like the poster above I find antifouling a massive hassle. I have to find two (rare) dryish winters days when I'm free and get soaking wet on wet ground and get covered in antifoul twice. I often ponder if it would be less hassle to pressure wash it monthly in the Summer *or* simply pressure wash it the week before I know I'm going to use it.

...and then there's gull poo.

If you are on a drying mooring where you can walk around the boat at low tide, then it's relatively easy to keep the boat clean.
I use a combination of plastic scraper, scrubbing pads and wet'n'dry.
I have these tools mounted on short plastic sticks, about 700mm of rigid plastic conduit.
I tend to clean the boat before most outings.

The wet'n'dry sponge blocks are very good, but you can only seem to get them for sensible prices from street markets.
I think pressure washing is grossly over -rated, wet'n'dry is jsut as quick and gives a smooth fiinish which wipes clean.

Some of the naughty fishermen spray their boats with bleach or possibly other chemicals.

 

[Mark-1]

If you are on a drying mooring where you can walk around the boat at low tide, then it's relatively easy to keep the boat clean.
I use a combination of plastic scraper, scrubbing pads and wet'n'dry.
I have these tools mounted on short plastic sticks, about 700mm of rigid plastic conduit.
I tend to clean the boat before most outings.

The wet'n'dry sponge blocks are very good, but you can only seem to get them for sensible prices from street markets.
I think pressure washing is grossly over -rated, wet'n'dry is jsut as quick and gives a smooth fiinish which wipes clean.

Some of the naughty fishermen spray their boats with bleach or possibly other chemicals.

Plastic scraper like a car windscreen scraper? I could easily cable tie one of those to a broom handle. Seems a bit kinder than the hoe.

...and bleach strikes me as a rather effective way of killing the stuff off at the "slime" phase. That's just harmlessly washing a hull with detergent.

 

[Pye_End]

Please don't follow the lead of idiots who have no care for the world around us, and lob unsuitable chemicals into the environment.

Eg. The Impact of Bleach on Our Environment, Our Food Chain and In Turn, Ourselves - Magic Pixies | Eco Cleaning Company

 

[oldgit]

From memory worst year for fouling ever down here on the Medway, irrespective of your choice of A/F.
We had Mobos going back on our drying blocks after less than 3/4 months with a crop of weed and barnycules and most curiously a large amount of slime.
Although on a tidal part of the river, the water is probably quite brackish for much of the day, especially when the upper Medway is in flood during the winter months.
Doubt there is any brand or type of A/F that was not in use including several boats with C/C.
All of the boats with CC had the stuff put on by previous owners. Of the couple of boats who did attempt to use CC, both had the stuff over coated with traditional A/F within season or two.
We have lost about 4 knots at the top end but have spoken to skippers who have lost 10 knots.
It did not help when most of the boats on our moorings failed to leave the pontoons due to the rubbish weather. earlier in the year.
We have a very powerful pressure washer and it will remove anything on hull without indue exertion or more importantly unintended damage to hull caused by the force required to use a scraper of some description.
It also gets into nooks and crannies a lot better.

 

[johnalison]

I have coppercoat- which is not as good as most decent antifoul paints.
Due to ill health I have had to cut short my sailing this year. Since the last launching, I have managed trips to Ipswich, Plus a month doing Ostend, round to Dieppe, Dover & back to Bradwell. So the boat has not sat idle.
Having launched on 21 June, by 28 August the boat was so badly weeded that it lost almost .5 kt under power. Not unusual for the Coppercoat.
In the marina there was long strands at the waterline & clearly full hairy growth as far as I could see lower down.
The odd thing is, that this week I looked at the hull. The long strands at the waterline have gone. The furry stuff lower down is now somewhat less.
I am sure that the Coppercoat is not responsible. It has been warm so weed normally thrives. But is it something to do with the weed I collected in France & Belgium dying in UK water, or has the season for weed growth suddenly changed?
I have not been in any fresh water locations

I too launched late this year, in early June, and so only gave it one coat of a cheaper Hempel a/f. I have only been out for day sails, so it has had too little use, but last week I was surprised to find my speed under power only down by about 0.2 kn. I would like to think that the Trilux on the prop has stuck a bit better that last year’s.

 

[pandos]

Took mine out of the water yesterday.

Had been afloat since August 2021, in March 2022 it had a bit of slime, it was sanded and two coats of the usual AF were applied. Despite scraping the upper 18 inches or so before I left on Sunday the boat was only able to make about 3 kts through the water which made tides a huge factor.

Fuel wise it was using 5 liters per hour at 2100 rpm. Ordinarily I would get 5 to 6 kts at 1900 RPM with less than 3 liters per hour, and a top speed of about 7kts.

There were clumps of mussels , weird red yokes and barnicales all over especially beneath the keel. I found a dinghy oar was a good tool to remove them prior to power washing.

For some reason one side was worse than the other so the boat crabbed through the water and even at anchor it took a while to get it to lie steady.

It will be copper-coated this year so hopefully a quick clean against the piles will be all that it needs for a few years.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Hmm, in response to answers here had the boat lifted yesterday for a racing scrub - actually, a racing scrape. Suprised the boat was able to move at all! In my defence, I can only say that when we moored in Cardiff Bay, we never saw a barnacle from one year to the next.

I use a combination of hard antifouling and Scrubbis regularly. As above, the prop and stern gear are the weak point and remain untouched.

I seem to remember a friend of mine had a Hanse where the prop was accesable from inside the boat and whilst afloat ?

 

[steveeasy]

Like it or not. A boat really needs to be lifted once a year and be cleaned and antifouled. If you do this then you won’t loose performance.
My first year I tried to avoid anti fouling and I eventually ended up one day motoring up the Hamble and being overtaken by a rowing boat.
Since that humiliation I’ve conformed each year and my boat never gets fouled up.

Steveeasy

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Big thread drift here
The only benefit of Coppercoat is not having to get under the boat sanding down old A/F every year
In my mind that is a big plus
Also there is the ever rising cost of the A/F paint. Not to forget the ancilliaries , such as rollers, thinners, wipes, gloves, masks, overalls etc.
What one does have to do, after the launch at the start of the season, is budget for a mid season scrub.
I have spoken to a number of staff in St Helier, Burnham, Inverness, Dover & Shotley, who all say that Copper coat is no better- in some cases worse- than ordinary antifoul paint. None of them has said that it actually works as claimed. I have spoken to owners who are happy, but generally their form of "happy" is a thick film of speed reducing scum, all over the hull & long weed at the waterline. I have spoken to owners who are very disappointed I currently have long furry growth 50mm plus long, well below the waterline. I am far from impressed & if I had been able to continue my holiday, I would have had the hull jetwashed in Cherbourg.

We are delighted with our coppercoat. It is no better at preventing growth, and no worse either, and it’s over a year old now, when other finishes would have been replaced. The real beauty is being able to scrub it without removing the paint along with the growth. We scrub very regularly. Last Friday was the most recent, it’s every fortnight at least. It’s a race boat, scrubbing is part of the deal. We have a conventionally painted wooden race boat too, that needs scrubbing once a fortnight from May onwards, and once a week from August, when the paint is 3 parts knackered and the water temperature is near maximum. The effect of growth on speed, one small green patch on an XOD is the difference between 1st and last. On the dragonfly, if we miss a fortnightly scrub, our 3/4 throttle cruising speed goes from 7kn to 6kn. Just one mid season scrub, regardless of your fouling prevention method is a disaster. You would win 2 races a year. The day you launch and the day you scrub. You deep keel Johnnies simply have no idea what's going on under your waterlines. Our boat isn’t popular at the club, for that reason. It’s their own faults, their boats are dirty and ours isn’t. Bottom line, fouling is slow. Very very slow. It’s why even big race boats dry sail if they are serious. We can save that expense by swimming under our 40cm draught, often.

 

[Mark-1]

I use a combination of hard antifouling and Scrub it regularly.

That's interesting. I use soft anti fouling because I thought anti fouling was for fast boats. ...but if I bite the bullet and admit to myself I need some mid season spray offs/slime washes a year I guess hard anti fouling won't erode the way the soft does when it's scraped/pressure washed/sponged.

What does the panel think.

 

[B27]

Plastic scraper like a car windscreen scraper? I could easily cable tie one of those to a broom handle. Seems a bit kinder than the hoe.

...and bleach strikes me as a rather effective way of killing the stuff off at the "slime" phase. That's just harmlessly washing a hull with detergent.

I use one of those without a long handle.
My scraper-on-a-stick is actually a flexible plastic square sold for applying car body filler.

Bleach is not a detergent, it's sodium hypochlorite.
I'm not a chemist, but AIUI, dissolved n water, it's the same ions which are present in the sea already.
I have mixed opinions about its use, it's probably less harmful than antifoul generally.

 

[Mark-1]

I use one of those without a long handle.
My scraper-on-a-stick is actually a flexible plastic square sold for applying car body filler.

Bleach is not a detergent, it's sodium hypochlorite.
I'm not a chemist, but AIUI, dissolved n water, it's the same ions which are present in the sea already.
I have mixed opinions about its use, it's probably less harmful than antifoul generally.

I'm not intending to try it, but bleach goes down sinks and heads in boat so it's not a big leap to think it would work on slime....

I will have a go with car scraper and an improvised long handled scraper. Between the keels is not feasible but the rest sounds doable.

 

[B27]

I'm not intending to try it, but bleach goes down sinks and heads in boat so it's not a big leap to think it would work on slime....

I will have a go with car scraper and an improvised long handled scraper. Between the keels is not feasible but the rest sounds doable.

A plastic spatula which flexes to the curve of the hull is another good tool.
I find I can get between the keels reasonably, if they are not sunk into the ground much.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I'm not intending to try it, but bleach goes down sinks and heads in boat so it's not a big leap to think it would work on slime....

I will have a go with car scraper and an improvised long handled scraper. Between the keels is not feasible but the rest sounds doable.

Putting bleach down the heads isn't a good idea. It can perish the seals, not just the furry ones outside, and it won’t do the smells from your holding tank any good.