Reactive resins, Coppercoat?

I now realise I made a slight mistake in my post above. The preparation for Synergy is actually a little more involved than I implied above, as according to their website, it has to be applied over a coat of their Safeguard TC epoxy primer. So instead of being able to apply it directly to gel-coat as would be the case with Coppercoat, you have to start off by applying some of their primer. Of course, this adds to the overall cost, as well as being more work and elongating the application process. I suspect that the cost of the epoxy primer for my hypothetical 10m yacht would more than cancel out any possible £80 saving. I apologise for any confusion caused by my earlier post.
 
The difference is that the CopperCoat WILL fail if you don't have every last scrap of old antifoul off the hull whilst the Synergy tie coat is designed as a barrier so whilst you sand back thoroughly it doesn't matter if there is the odd missed flake of old paint which would cause copper coat to fall off; or at least it has for several owners and CopperCoat blame any failures on this lack of preparation. When I was quoted by Coppercoat in Spain they suggested I could sand the hull but they wouldn't guarantee a good finish and would only really recommend soda blasting at around £1500. The price I was quoted just for supply of paint was £400 different on a 10.3m cat but I appreciate that I was dealing with the official Spanish importer who priced it not the UK factory so the difference may be less in the UK. Also bear in mind that Synergy offer discounts on larger quantities and to various organisations like the CA.

From the two websites - Coppercoat is £94 / litre inc VAT - Synergy is £60 / litre inc VAT - for my boat I was told I needed 15 litres so £510 difference and then 5 litres of the tie coat was £88 inc VAT so the saving was £422 for a 10m cat - quite a big difference from the rather misleading £80 you mention Ewan.
 
We had Coppercoat applied professionally to a brand new boat that had never been in the water. It worked extremely well - virtually zero fouling that came off easily with a pressure wash. The trouble was that a lot of the Coppercoat came off at the same time! I know people that are very happy with it, but preparation and application is critically important - it's not like a coat of Cruiser Uno - if that falls off after 12 months, you have not lot much. We paid over £4000 to have our boat Coppercoated - not something you can just write off...
 
Without reading the whole thread i would add that i have 2 boats. One with copper tec & one with copper coat. The copper tec performs marginally better. However the copper tec one gets jet washed every month as it is used for racing. It is always better than the copper coated ones. But that might just be quality of application.
As for sitting in mud -my hanse sits in the mud in the marina by about 2 feet. This part of the keel alwYs gets badly fouled. I reduced this by applying a coat of a good erodable antifoul paint over the bottom 2 feet of the keel. This reduces the foulling & is definately better in this situation than copper coat.the rest of teh boat has copper coat &after a couple of months gets a slime that will wipe off easily enough but does affect sailing performance and does not come off when sailing .
I agree whole heartedly that it saves loads of work each year & whilst it is no better than the blakes ocean performer that i used to use i do not have the hassle. If i want to race i get the boat lifted & washed mid season. This costs no more than 2 tins of the blakes so a better option in the long run as little labour involved
So a plus for coppercoat but not the bit that goes in the mud on the east coast --- bradwell
 
Somebody mentioned earlier in the thread the different colours that Coppercoat can show. The attached picture of my keel shows all three stages.

The orangey-gold is freshly applied over the keel-hull joint and some minor repairs lower down.
The green- brown colour of the majority of the keel is what it looks like after about three years.
The darker brown leading edge of the keel is about eighteen months old, the result of some repairs after doing some mono-pulse hydrographic surveying in Sardinia.

The performance reaches its best about two years after application.



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I fully understand that you are very keen to justify your decision to be a guinea pig for Synergy, Trident, but there are some inaccuracies in your post for me to address.

Twenty five years ago we were in a similar situation to Reactive Resins and needed similarly brave souls to try our system. At that time, when we launched Coppertcoat as a 10-year anti-foul, nearly everyone thought we were bonkers. All the alternatives lasted 2 years at best.

Thankfully sufficient people understood the chemistry behind our coating and could foresee the financial benefits. So here we are 25 years later with our anti-foul on over 50,000 boats and with many of the most prestigious manufacturers offering Coppercoat as an upgrade option.

Of course, having been doing what we've been doing for as long as we have we've seen all sorts along the way. Indeed, we've seen several other products from Reactive Resins come and go. But as I've said on other threads, their new product may yet prove to be a good one. (If I've used the wrong company name please forgive me - I forget when Reactive Resins / Permanent Coatings / Synthetic Systems etc formed or closed, but I'm referring to the business(es) in Cornwall that have launched/discontinued such products as Copperguard, Copperplus, and now, Synergy.)

But in the interests of fairness and honesty, I should point out that the RRP of Coppercoat is actually GBP 84 inc VAT, not GBP 94. Naturally this is before any volume or seasonal discounts. And to treat a 10.5m catamaran (depending on exactly which one you have) you are most likely to need in the region of 10 litres, not 15. This is based on our standard coverage rate of 4m2 per litre.

If you feel the information on our website in some way misled you, please do contact me directly at Coppercoat. If you email us on info at Coppercoat dot com and mention my name it will be brought to my attention. Please include the name Trident as well as your real name so that I know the background. If we have a private conversation it'll save numerous YBW forumites having to suffer our natterings!
 
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Having just visited the Synergy website, I see that the price published for the 1 litre unit is GBP 58.88 ex Vat, which comes to GBP 70.65 inc Vat. So for the standard 1 litre pack the difference is a tad over GBP 13 per litre. Just thought I should clear up the confusion. (This does not take into account the cost of the additional primer epoxy required by the Synergy system.)

I should also point out that for good adhesion, all two-pack epoxy coatings (whether our Coppercoat or other products such the Gelshield range from International, the Hempadure range from Hempel, the Megacote range from Jotun, the West System range, the Hullguard range from Awlgrip, or the primer from Reactive Resins) must be applied to a clean, dry, sound, permanent and well abraded substrate. Whether the gel-coat is prepared by hand, machine, or blasting is not important - what matters is that it be properly prepared. If any of these coatings and their like are applied over layers or flakes of soft ablative single-pack anti-foul paint, as and when the paint finally and inevitably looses adhesion to the gel-coat it will naturally bring with it the overlying epoxy coating in that location. So, whatever two-pack system you chose, whether ours or anyone else's, do please be sure to prepare the substrate appropriately.

In the ideal World one of us would invent a sealer coat that would stabilise old anti-foul to allow epoxies to be applied on top without the need to first remove the old paint. But unfortunately that's not yet been achieved. Which is good news for businesses such as Symblast that earn their keep by offering anti-foul removal services.

Talking of which, as an approximate guide (which may be useful to many YBW readers), here in the UK it usually costs about GBP 600 inc Vat to blast clean the average 10m fin keeled yacht. Naturally costs vary from place to place and from one operator to another, so it pays to shop around. But when it comes to blasting my advice would always be to use the company with the best reputation, even if that means paying a little more.
 
Ewan
I did say I had been quoted by your Spanish site where the price is most definitely £94 / l not £84 - its there in black and white today and it it was they that quoted me 13-15 litres based on the dimensions of my boat ; so perhaps you need to retrain the distributors you use if you think they over quoted and give them a better pricing structure so that it is the same EU wide.
Also, yes the Synergy is £58 for 1L but they do 5L packs (the smallest any boat of any size would need I think) which reduce the price to that I quoted. I have no affinity to this company other than having bought their product and I will give honest reviews of whether it works or not but you constantly seem to be trying to skew an open forum discussion with misleading information to advertise your product and that I think is inappropriate. If you have 50,000 customers you clearly don't need to be engaging in such tactics - its a big market and your reputation should be enough to ensure your continued place in it. Trust me, if the Synergy does not work long term I will be coming to CopperCoat instead (at least when I've saved up enough to afford it ;) )
 
You are quite correct to note that the website of our distributors in Spain does quote a figure apparently higher than the standard EU wide RRP for Coppercoat. This is because it mentions only the price for the 1 litre pack and includes Vat and delivery. Most other sites, whether ours or that for Synergy, show prices excluding Vat and delivery. As ever, the devil is in the detail and we all need to be sure we are fairly comparing apples with apples.

Normally a personalised quote is made for each individual enquiry, appropriate for the boat in question. At that point due consideration is taken of factors such as order size and delivery location/time. I'm happy to confirm that a boat such as yours would commonly need about 10 litres, at a pro rata price of (excluding any seasonal/special promotions) GBP 70 per litre, plus VAT and delivery. This gives a figure of around £850 all-in for your 10.5m catamaran, and if you should ever want to swap to Coppercoat, please do feel free to remind me of this post and make me stick to this!

I try to post only when necessary to correct minor inaccuracies about our system - usually with regards to issues such as application or usage. I'm sorry you feel I have tried to skew this thread - my intention is simply to ensure its accuracy. Giving accurate information on details such as surface preparation, the need (or not) for a primer, coverage rate, etc, I hope is useful to all readers.

Finally, I happen to be flying to Spain tomorrow for a couple of days of meetings in Barcelona. If you are there also, contact me via the UK Coppercoat office and let's meet for a beer (on me!).
 
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