Plastic ‘tenting/skirt’ for blasting and antifouling

[jaziniho]

I’ve been trying to find some tips for the attaching and draping a plastic skirt/tent around the bottom of hull in preparation for it to be blasted ( prior to all the primer and fouling layers going on).

I don’t know what the proper name for these are, so have been trouble finding any threads on this.

Looking particularly for recommendations - what weight of plastic sheeting is good balance of being thick enough to be useful and not blow around too much?
what’s the best way of attaching to the hull, masking tape? Drape from much higher up? Does it need weighing down at the bottom?

This must have been covered[sic] before, but without the terminology it’s tricky to find....

Cheers

 

[Aurai]

Hi

This will not be the perfect answer, but I have some idea. Heavyweight plastic sheeting, the trouble is I do not know how to describe heavy. About as heavy as you can get but you want light to be allowed in. It gets pretty dirty. Held to boat toe rail by those clips you get from builders merchant, lots of them and long enough to fold inwards about a metre. You then rest sand bags/stuff on the fold to seal it at the base. Or, yes it does need held down. Blast material needs to be kept in and you are creating air pressure build up. You need a clip about every metre and the plastic we used was heavier duty than the bags gravel comes in. Or talk to Apollo chap Richard Whatley

 

[greeny]

The guys here in the yard use the portuguese equivalent of duck tape (lots of it) to attach to the hull above the waterline on a vertical surface. If you attach on a surface area that is underneath it comes off too easily with the weight. They use lengths of timber to weigh down the bottom edge with heavy blocks to add weight where necessary to stop it blowing up. The joints are all taped and sealed with a large overlapping flap at the point of entry which can be closed after you enter. I don't know the weight of the plastic as in the gauge or weight but it need to be fairly heavy to be robust enough, I would liken the weight to building visqueen that comes from builders merchants. If you use clear or opaque you will be light enough to work in there. Certainly not the light weight sheeting that is sold for protection when painting in the house.
I don't know if you're doing the work in a boatyard but if so they may well have a "specification" it needs to meet.

 

[[70521]]

Talk to any boatyard they will do this several time a year.

 

[jaziniho]

Sounds like something closer to the stuff used to cover a poly tunnel greenhouse than the very thin stuff for round the house is what’s needed.

The yard have already got me stuck about 50metres from nearest other boat, between 3 old shipping containers - so they’ve planned to keep it well out the way whilst it gets blasted.