To antifoul or not

Marceline said:
we've got a couple of small patches of missing coppercoat where it'd rubbed along the mooring ball on our swing mooring (one of various of my newb mistakes - I think the strop was too short)

I had been dithering on getting a top-up kit from Coppercoat (just as we've never done it before or epoxyd) but am now wondering reading your suggestions above if maybe I leave it for this season and try and either brush her from the bow below the waterline each time we get on at the weekend, or find somewhere we can dry out on bilge keels ?



either ways I'm def getting a pro to make up a new strop for this season :)
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Is that where boat is riding up and onto the buoy ? Length of strop will usually not cure that ....

It's why I always set my mooring with a buoy that could be lifted and secured to avoid boat riding it.
 
I antifouled my boat when I bought her in 2009, and touched up a few bits the next time she was ashore in 2019. I have just handed her over to a new owner and we discussed a few small weed growths just below the waterline - the first I have seen on the boat. A lift, clean and light rub down might get him a couple more years out of the Coppercoat.
 
Maintaining your bottom for racing is indeed hard work. But there is no other part of the boat so influential on performance. I know some folks are OK to bimble around the course, but you even do that better with a clean bottom. And if you have any ambition to win, even if that’s in some far off dream future, if you’ve even got a film of slime, you might as well stay moored up.
 
Sandy said:
A bit like climbing Chomolungma (Mount Everest), because you can.

My last boat was a bilge keeler on the Exe and very often the tides were not conducive to sailing, but I could move the boat a few hundred metres, dry out and clean the hull. Now I have a fin keel on the Tamar and need to book the club scrubbing grid.

One of the joys of boat ownership is looking after your craft. I get to inspect the hull every few weeks and as I'm coppercoated able to wipe off the slime.

The racing boys and girls are seen every week heaving their boats over to expose the keel then rush about with brushes on the pontoon to clean the boats bottoms. Looks like extremely hard work.

We all enjoy sailing in different ways, one of the joys on this activity.
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Yes - by all means, whatever makes you happy 😀
 
I would dry out regularly and scrub, you have good range of tides there. Down here when I had bilge keel I would dry out regular and anti foul when I felt it was getting too bad every couple of years.

I still use same technique best value anti fouling I can find. Scrub when required, when painting then wet and dry the boat using course foam blocks, apply one coat. I have never had build up of antifouling doing this.

I now have long keel, have had fin keel, both I scrubbed from time to time as required. I have found brush with buoyancy at end works well, the water bottle or fender as buoyancy applies pressure to the boat. For fin keeler I made hinged pole to get round hull shape.

I have moved from brush to soft floor squeegee over time as it’s better on hard growth barnacles and the like. Still with buoyancy on end, using brush for weed on waterline. With practice it takes about an hour for 10 meter boat both sides to get acceptable improvement, a couple of hours to do reasonable job.

I manage about 18 months - 2 years before I decide to get her lifted.
 
Sandy said:
Why antifoul at all. As long as you beach the boat every few weeks you can clean its bottom.
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It's surprising what will grow in two weeks.
Beaching a boat once a fortnight also quickly becomes a time commitment which eats into sailing time.
It's OK if you can just turn up at low tide for an hour's cleaning, but if you need to move the boat, wait for the the tide etc etc, it soon becomes a long day., and only viable for LW around mid day except in peak summer.
 
I once had to leave a 16ft inflatable afloat for about two or three weeks. No antifoul of course. When I recovered her the entire bottom was covered in small barnacles, not enough room for one more. It was similar with our Pioneer dinghy, but the waxy plastic she was made of made it relatively easy to scrape the barnacles off about once a week or so. Just took her to the beach beside the marina after the lifeguards had gone home.
 
srm said:
I once had to leave a 16ft inflatable afloat for about two or three weeks. No antifoul of course. When I recovered her the entire bottom was covered in small barnacles, not enough room for one more. It was similar with our Pioneer dinghy, but the waxy plastic she was made of made it relatively easy to scrape the barnacles off about once a week or so. Just took her to the beach beside the marina after the lifeguards had gone home.
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It takes about 3 days for noticeable slime to show on something without AF. If we do a long weekend away and leave our RIB on our mooring, it has slime. It lives on a trolley in the dinghy park normally. And yes, about 2 weeks for a good number of barnacles.
 
Just out of interest. My long keeler has beaching legs ,I have considered drying out to clean the bottom but unsure as to whether or not I'm committing an offence by scrubbing any growth off, which may have antifouling residues
 
"...unsure as to whether or not I'm committing an offence by scrubbing any growth off..."

As always, isn't the best advice, don't ask?

If you ask anyone locally they likely won't be sure, so they'll always say no rather than encourage what might potentially be frowned on.

If you just do it, then somebody with knowledge and proof that it's forbidden, tells you to stop, you can honestly say you didn't know.

Much more likely you won't be confronted.

This thread has me thinking I want a lifting-keeler that I can berth in a tight-fitting tarpaulin bag, with fresh water and a dribble of bleach added.
.
 
dancrane said:
"...unsure as to whether or not I'm committing an offence by scrubbing any growth off..."

As always, isn't the best advice, don't ask?

If you ask anyone locally they likely won't be sure, so they'll always say no rather than encourage what might potentially be frowned on.

If you just do it, then somebody with knowledge and proof that it's forbidden, tells you to stop, you can honestly say you didn't know.

Much more likely you won't be confronted.

This thread has me thinking I want a lifting-keeler that I can berth in a tight-fitting tarpaulin bag, with fresh water and a dribble of bleach added.
.
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You can buy the bag, as you may know. But you are right, you need a pretty much flush bottomed lifting keel to get into it. David Moss has ‘Puffin’ for sale, Any good?
 
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