To antifoul or not to antifoul...?

C

ChasB

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My boat was last antifouled Spring of 2005. Since then it's only done about 40 hours out on the water - all of it on the Thames except for a few hours on the Medway. The rest of the time it's sat quietly in marinas undergoing many many repairs.

In theory it should be antifouled every two years, so it's now well overdue.

But I've been told by my mate Charlie (and you might even know him /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) that it's water current that erodes the antifouling. If the boat has hardly been anywhere, the antifouling is still down there and so doesn't need re-doing.

Is he correct?

If he's wrong, what bad things might happen? /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
Oooer.

If it's erodable antifoul it'll erode. If it's hard antifoul it won't.

Best bet is to lift it and see.

Or dry out somewhere, if you can do that safely
 
Of course Charlie is both right & wrong:-

Medway = Tidal & fairly fast flowing, so probably OK. The purpose of Antifouling paint is to leech away into the water thereby shedding the weed etc and allowing you maximum speed/efficiency whilst cruising, but it must therefore have a limited life.

Marinas (typically) in an arm off the main water flow thus fouling can be pretty dramatic even over one season.

Use a good quality (pay megabucks for it) antifouling and listen to what the locals normally use, (if you can find one anymore). They usually know best. Of course being in the UK you probably need to ensure your paint complies with some EU directive or other to ensure you don’t upset the local fishing or ‘Gay’ community, etc.

“What bad things might happen” – Well you may get excessive weed growth, the boat will slow down initially, but after a few hours of flogging it around the tideway, probably it will be OK. The best way to kill off F/Water weed is to go into salt water and vice-versa.

A/F paint doesn’t do anything to protect a hull GRP, wood or steel; indeed there are some who view the idea of a simple wax polish as being more than adequate.

You’ve been in fresh water for two years, lift her out now, give it a good pressure-wash and see if you really need to top up the A/F. Then assess how often you are likely to need to do this again?


Cheers CRB
 
Well conditions are very differeent here. With warm (well not too cold) water the fouling grows very quickly if the paint is gone.
With any growth especially on a smaller boat it just won't go. ie sluggish to sail even hard to steer.

So it is 10 days since I put my boat back in the water with old A/F and I am thinking I should check it for growth with mask and snorkel.
In practice I wipe it over every week to eventually it is just too much work to keep clean so then I will replace the A/F. By then the weather will be warmer and A/f really needed. I also will have rubbed off most of the old A/F. (I don't put much on.)

Anyway I sail on other people's boats occasionally and feel very critical if it has growth and won't sail properly. I would rather scrub it myself than suffer a sluggish boat.

Not that story will help you at all. Your conditions being vastly different. You may be able to monitor the condition of the bottom if you can see the rudder if the water is clear and the sun just right.

good luck olewill
 
There was some growth visible close to the waterline, but it came off with a hose! And after the sojourn to the Medway a couple of weeks ago (which also meant going into the salty Thames estuary for a few hours) it seems clear of anything now.

Charlie is a knowledgeable local, so I guess he'd know. And the water here hasn't been too warm this year (it rarely is!). But some folk hereabouts do it religiously, but then I'm not convinced they really need to, and anyway they've been lucky enough to be able to take their boats out frequently so their situation's different. Problem here is the water's a bit too murky to see very deeply.

So, from what's been said here, I don't do the boat any harm if I just leave it for a bit? Like, it's not urgent, and I don't have to go out of my way to get it done till the spring?

Cheers.
 
If you've gone from salt to fresh water or vice versa then everything nasty will have been killed off. Just leave it to spring and then re-assess.
 
Going off at a slight tangent, if you haven't looked at the bottom, are you sure your anodes are OK? When we were in a Medway marina we needed to change them every year.
 
I've put a hanging anode down there. Even if the regular ones have perished (and I do hope not! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif ) the props are still protected. I'm about to fit a galvanic isolator too.
 
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