Newbie question - bottom scraping

[TQA]

I did have quite a go at it on two successive weeks: mostly clearing up the prop and rudder. The first time round the prop was almost invisible! I came to the conclusion though, that the hull below water was too badly fouled for in-aqua attempts to have much effect - as the boat's continued sluggishness demonstrated. Had it been mid season, I would have grounded her for a scrub down, but with only a few weeks left till liftout, I thought I might as well leave it till then.

It's certainly been a year of learning... I hope next year will be more one of sailing!

Steve

Well you should be able to clean the bottom in about an hour using snorkel gear AND an eight inch flexible stainless steel scraper mounted on an 8 ft pole. Work from the surface. I have a 44 footer and park it in an extremely fertile anchorage so it needs a regular scrape to remove barnacles and soft corals. I still manage to do the job in about an hour despite being a fat geriatric. I don't need a wet suit as the water here stays above 80 f year round but I do need a good shower afterwards to dislodge all the tiny shrimp that move from boat bottom to my bottom and other important little places.

It helps if you weight the scraper end a little.

Getting the prop clean can be difficult and a smaller stiffer scraper might be better.