Shot blaster on the Medway: recommendations please

[MagicalArmchair]

Mirage (40 foot Bav) has AF on her bottom and I want to go with Coppercoat, as I had very successfully on my old boat Triola (30 foot Ballad). I keep approaching the thought of scraping it all off... and then retreating again. The best answer, I fear, is not desperately “PBO”, but to pay a professional to shot blast her.

Can anyone recommend a good company that can shot blast her on Chatham marinas hard? What prep usually needs doing post blasting, pre Coppercoat? The iron keel will be a delight!

 

[Concerto]

Hello Mark

The marina will not allow any sand or soda blasting due to the mess. However you can get it dry ice blasted. The company to use is Gransden Construction Ltd. When Concerto was out of the water in August, I spoke to their director in charge of the marine blasting. I expect he should be able to complete the work in a day using 2 machines. A guide to cost would be about £1200.

https://www.gransdens.com/marine-dry-ice/

He has a number of other boats he will be removing the antifouling from at the marina over the next few months.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

It looks a great service, and worth it to save the life sapping scraping, however at £3,330 inc VAT for the blasting, and £1,250 for the Copper, it raises it from the "ouch" to the "YEouch" territory of £4,580k.

2 year Micro 350 AF will cost me £400 for the boat, so call that £500 once I have all consumables. That is £250 a year. Lets' call the Copper 15 years of life, £250 x 15 years = £3,750. Subseqent coatings would JUST be the Copper after that point of course.

Also, every two years, there would be no labour required if I went Copper. Tricky. It would also protect against inflation (AF WILL go up in price).

It does make the application of the Copper critical though - if I "screw it up", then I am down £1,250 with nothing to show (I did apply it to my last boat successfully though)...

 

[Yngmar]

You're better off applying the Coppercoat yourself to ensure it's done properly. A shocking number of "professional" applicators seem to not remember the process too well or never bothered reading the manual and screw it up, hence the many "it doesn't work!" stories going around.

The scraping of decades of old poison on the other hand is a nasty and very physically demanding job. Although as the quotes I got at the time were even more ridiculous than yours, I did it anyways. Probably wouldn't do it again, but then the benefit of the Coppercoat is that I won't have to

The Coppercoat paid for itself quickly because it allowed us to skip haulouts. We scrub in the water and only haul out ever 2 years (or longer lately). And then when we do we don't need to prep and paint and wait for it to dry.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Cracking write-up Yngmar! 2 days to scrape it off to save £3,330 sounds like a bargain to me... although at the end of the second day, I bet that would sound cheap .

I haul her out every year anyway, more from habit and the traditional view that I should really dry her out once a year fully for six to eight weeks - also I am not in the lovely climate you are in!

I'll park for two years I think, save up, and then smash that job out...

 

[Concerto]

It looks a great service, and worth it to save the life sapping scraping, however at £3,330 inc VAT for the blasting, and £1,250 for the Copper, it raises it from the "ouch" to the "YEouch" territory of £4,580k.

2 year Micro 350 AF will cost me £400 for the boat, so call that £500 once I have all consumables. That is £250 a year. Lets' call the Copper 15 years of life, £250 x 15 years = £3,750. Subseqent coatings would JUST be the Copper after that point of course.

Also, every two years, there would be no labour required if I went Copper. Tricky. It would also protect against inflation (AF WILL go up in price).

It does make the application of the Copper critical though - if I "screw it up", then I am down £1,250 with nothing to show (I did apply it to my last boat successfully though)...

That sounds as if he is charging for 2 full days for 2 machines. He did the power boat in the video in 2 days with just one machine. So let him see the boat out of the water and say that Concerto is not happy you are quoting so high. May be you tie in with Colin who owns a Broom motorboat on the pontoon arm alongside the toilet block as I know he is planning to get his antifoul removed as there is about 20 years worth of hard antifouling built up and flaking in places.

The alternative would be to strip one side of the boat manually and copper coat, then the following year do the other side.