is antifoul paint a big con??

[gary3029]

Just brought my 24ft wood boat out for a week to get the bottom done, touch up the varnish and take out the toilet. I have each year spent a fortune on antifoul paints, some well known makes and others a little cheaper. Each year weed is hanging like a forest and barnacles are living by the hundred rent free. Antifoul paint has become to eco friendly and has no punch except in the pocket. What could I paint on the hull instead of expensive antifoul paint which will provide some protection to the wood. Thankfully I will be in all winter so I don't have to worry to much about fouling and in summer the guys in the yard have said they will lift me free so we can jetwash the boat. I am just getting fed up paying a fortune for a product which is too kind to the wild life.

 

[2nd_apprentice]

Red watercolour?

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Peterduck]

This is a subject which furrowes the brows of antifouling paint manufacturers all over. The recreational market is a drop in the ocean compared to the quantities used by commercial shipping. Imagine the market advantage that you would have if you could come up with a completely effective and 'green' antifouling! It has been observed that fish do it all the time, by being covered with a slime so that nothing can get a grip onto them. The remarkable ones are the cetaceans, who manage the same feat without any slime. The manufacturers want a coating to which nothing will stick, but getting the coating to stick to a wet boat is another problem.
Peter.

 

[elton]

They don't want to sell antifoul that actually works. Otherwise why would you need to buy it every year? If someone invented an eco-friendly antifoul that worked properly, one of the big paint manufacturers would buy the patent and hide it.

 

[holly1]

If i remember correctly on the brenden voyage (leather boat) they used sheep fat or lanlin.

I am going to try this on my rudder next year as i can lift it and paint it if it does not work.

Last year i put water proof grease on my prop which i must say lasted better than any antifoul i have ever put on.

 

[StephenF]

I use the stuff that the local fishermen use and buy same locally from a fisherman's chandlers. Results ... satisfactory for the wooden hull. My prop is always the worst. It attracts barnicles plus weed types that do not appear elswhere, Have used a leading, and expensive make of prop grease properly applied as per their instructions and various non eroding antifowlings but still each year the prop shows the best growth. Any answers?

 

[jgah]

try udder ointment, works well and is very cheap.

 

[holly1]

At first i thought you were joking but now i remember a big tin we had when i was a child the jersy we had used to get really sore nipples.

 

[pampas]

3 years ago I applied over hard antifouling stern tube grease (Lithium based {and a grp hull}) this was very effective, unfortunatly I have a 1/2 tide mooring with thick mud and the critters stuck to the mud film which had coated the grease, easy to scrape off but that also took most of the grease as well. if you have a non-drying mooring i would think this would work well but if applied to wood I do not know how this may react on wood. The bits that never mudded got on stayed free of grass and critters,I called it a success, may mix some copperslip in with the grease this year, but have found that the copperslip (or copper ease) is to thick and needs to be thinned down with 3-in-one oil before mixing. Thought that this experiment may be of interest to you all.

 

[Gordonmc]

It does work.
Last winter's refit involved a topside scrape and paint and loss of the waterline marks. When the boot top went back on it was three inches too low and as a result I have a midships beard where the weed is competing with the barnacles. The rest of the hull is clean.
Props are done with anhydrous lanolin (sheep fat) and, again, are clear.
Anti-foul is the cheapest available commercial stuff bought as part-tins.

 

[reginaldon]

I thiink I must have used Growmore last year.