Synergy Copper/ ResinAntifoul

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catalac08

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Apology if this has been posted before but has anyone used this stuff. It looks pretty cheap, reads well and they make a plausible case for it being able to avoid curing rate variability which may or may not explain the varied results people including professional applicators sometimes get with other products.

this stuff www.reactiveresins.com
 
Looks interesting and cant see any obvious reason why it would work less well than the coppercoat on my boat. That has worked fine for5 years or so.
 
I'm doing a test run with this in the Med for the company - obviously I won't have meaningful results for at least a year and the longer its on the more meaningful they will be.

I applied 3 coats today and will do more tomorrow - certainly their note about it being easy to apply is true - it goes on very easily and build up to a deep copper coating. I hauled out on Monday, spend 2 days sanding the hull bare and then put the recommended tie coat (Safeguard) on and gave it 24 hours to cure. Then we added the Synergy copper coating and when all the coats are done will leave it 48 hours to harden before launch next week.

All I can say for now is it mixes easily and applied easily and look very good sparkling in the Spanish sun. It was touch dry in around 20 minutes today (18 degrees and a fresh breeze) and I was happy to over coat in an hour, though in practice it was more like 90 minutes by the time I'd got overalls on, mixing done and the mix poured in to roller trays.

The boat is a 35 foot catamaran and will be in Med waters for the next couple of years and will then cross the pond. I will be keeping Reactive Resins informed of how it does in Med waters and sending them photos and reports each season and I'll do the same here
 
Thanks for posting -it will be good to hear of your experience with this (sensibly priced ) product.
 
Naturally we will watch this one with keen interest! Reactive Resins Ltd (formerly Permanent Coatings Ltd, and before that Synthetic Solutions Ltd) appear to have dropped the previous systems for which they made bold claims (including CopperGuard and CopperPlus), but who knows, maybe this will perform better. I suppose in 10 years time we'll know one way or the other. Though I seem to remember saying the same about CopperGuard and Copperplus...

I'm pleased to see that Reactive Resins they have now embraced modern water-based coatings technology, as this is ecologically sound practice. Being water-based and VOC-free was certainly an important factor to us when we developed Coppercoat and it's encouraging to see others follow suit.

The price issue is interesting and I note that the addition of their epoxy primer is compulsory. Add in this cost (and the associated work), and all of a sudden it doesn't look quite so cheap. That said, if this product is eventually proven to perform well for many years, it will offer good value.
 
Not all Copper Bottoms are effective. In 2008 I completely stripped my hull and put on two coats of epoxy followed by 7 coats of Flag Copperquick. Put it in the water in April and sailed to the Azores in June, returning in July and was back on the East Coast by early August. The boat had been quite slow when I was tacking up the Channel into an Easterly breeze. I put it against a wall to properly inspect the bottom in early August. It was a mass of both goose neck barnacles as well as normal barnacles. I tend to believe that there would have been less growth if I had applied no antifouling at all. I spoke to Flag about it and they said that it was only really any good if I scrubbed off every week or so and that I should have used their semi hard antifouling of the type of sailing I do. That was not the way they expressed themselves in their advertising. I had decided on the Flag Copperquick because they used to have a good reputation on the East Coast and their product promised a very slippery surface. Since the Flag Copperquick disaster I primed my hull and used normal antifouling avoiding Flag products. I notice that they have since withdrawn their product from the market so I may have not been the only unhappy customer.
That was a fairly expensive exercise for me even though I did all the work myself so I am much more careful in choosing my antifoul as a result and have never considered trying an alternative copper bottom as a result. My advice is to see how the tests pan out before investing in this new technology.
 
I think there may be some confusion here. Virtually all anti-foul paints use copper (and derivatives thereof) as their key biocides. All three Flag anti-fouls use copper, and I'll wager the anti-foul on your boat now uses copper also. For example, one of International Paints big sellers for many years was Micron CSC, with the "CSC" standing for Controlled Solubility Copper. So please be aware that just because your current system may not have the word copper in the title, doesn't mean it is not actually copper-based. The chances are that you have simply (and understandably) changed from using a copper-based product from Flag to using a copper-based product form A.N.Other manufacturer.

Hopefully your new system will be more effective, but if its not, there are plenty of others to choose from. Many people try a new one every year, and I regularly hear quotes ranging from "they all seem to work okay, so I buy whatever's on special offer" to "none of them work, so I buy whatever's on special offer"!
 
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