Ultrasonic 'antifouling' systems

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DaveHMS

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In 25 years of working in the marine business, I've not encountered a vessel fitted with such a system & have no idea if they work. Does anyone have any experience of them? I have a customer abroad asking me about them, marine electronics is my forte & I haven't a clue about this!
Dave Hutchins
 
Dave. Mixed views on here. Some think they are wonderful, some think snake oil. Little objective data to prove they work at the moment. Consensus on here is that Coppercoat is the best thing, if you are going to she'll out £1000+ on anti fouling.
 
The boat next to me had one installed - will be out of the water next week so I will take a picture if I can!

I can understand how it may protect the hull against marine fouling but I thought antifouling paint is used to protect the hull against corrosion or in GRP boats against osmosis as well? so surely the ultrasonic system won't do these additional functions!
 
vandy said:
The boat next to me had one installed - will be out of the water next week so I will take a picture if I can!

I can understand how it may protect the hull against marine fouling but I thought antifouling paint is used to protect the hull against corrosion or in GRP boats against osmosis as well? so surely the ultrasonic system won't do these additional functions!
Click to expand...

I don't think antifoul will resist either corrosion on a steel hull, or osmosis on grp.
 
DaveHMS said:
In 25 years of working in the marine business, I've not encountered a vessel fitted with such a system & have no idea if they work. Does anyone have any experience of them? I have a customer abroad asking me about them, marine electronics is my forte & I haven't a clue about this!
Dave Hutchins
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Well all I can say is that the NRG Sonihull Ultrasonic does not work in Titchmarsh marina in Walton-on-the-Naze and a complete waste of money!

Boat now wearing a coat of Coppercoat, so will see what results we get with that this year.
 
Cheers chaps
It has been my experience that there is rarely a magic bullet that will cut out the hard graft for jobs like this.
Dave
Hutchins Marine Services
 
DaveHMS said:
In 25 years of working in the marine business, I've not encountered a vessel fitted with such a system & have no idea if they work. Does anyone have any experience of them? I have a customer abroad asking me about them, marine electronics is my forte & I haven't a clue about this!
Dave Hutchins
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Berthed in the Med and our marina suffers from aggressive barnacle growth.
I know of at least 6 boats that have tried it - with no effect whatsoever - tell your customer that they are a waste of money.
They simply don't work.
We switched to Coppercoat 18 months ago and it working fine.

At Sant Carles, we get a particularly good deal from the marina to lift and wash in the marina's boatyard
20m boat - out, washed and back for around 150 euros.
IMO thats where to spend the money and get a really clean boat.

The big problem though is the props, P brackets, trim tabs and rudders
Ultrasonics do absolutely nothing for growth on the underwater metalwork.
 
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The owner of NRG Marine (a manufacturer of ultrasonic anti-foul) uses Coppercoat on both his own boats. Read into that what you will!

To be fair to NRG, they don't claim that ultrasonic is for use instead of a normal anti-foul - rather they recommend that it be used alongside a conventional anti-foul (or better still, Coppercoat) to hopefully augment the performance.

On this forum "Elesar" tried an ultrasonic system a year or two back on his motorboat in Southampton. He'll probably be along later to post about it, but in short, it failed.
 
Works for me

My yacht 59ft long has two ultrasonic transducers and is currently engaged on a circumnavigation.

From UK to New Zealand, I hauled every 4-6 months and had to reapply 2 coats antifoul. Had Ultrasonic fitted in New Zealand in Dec 12. Have snorkelled under her every 3 months since and wiped off a blue/green slime with a cloth. Need to scrape growth off the metal fittings that aren't covered with Propspeed. 12 months later the hull is as good as new - just beginning to get a few barnacles between rudder and skeg.

Decided to leave haul out until the Caribbean in May when I will haul out for Hurricane season 17 months after she was last anti fouledd.

Cost? About £1500. Savings so far two/three haul outs and four-six coats of Antifoul. Perhaps £7,000?

Result!
 
I had ultrasonic on my 2009 Sq 58 in the Med. Total total waste of money. Useless gear imho. I have some pictures somewhere

As regards the "consensus" on coppercoat, it works fine but I prefer Micron 77 which works just as well imho and looks better because it is black
 
Without knowing much, I am sure that there are many types of ultrasonic...not many people seem to rate it so far, but it will work in the end. Too sweeping to write it off out of hand, without qualifying which systems are used.

From what I have read, ultrasonic antifoul sends a sound along the hull which "disrupts the cell walls of organisms" effectively vibrating them off. My first two thoughts were:
1) It would need to be tuned to the each hull otherwise it wouldn't be the correct frequency for those pesky organisms or give full coverage across the hull.
2) How can you possibly find sound waves that work on both algae and barnacles, that's like blowing a dog whistle and assuming all animals will react.

Hoping somebody that knows the science (not a salesman of course), will give us some input (and ridicule my thoughts if they deserve to be).
 
I did wonder about them a while ago but got put off by poor reviews from the few owners I've spoken to. I'm also a bit worried at the possibility of fatigue failures in the hull or attached components - you have to leave the thing turned on continuously and I'm not convinced that we know enough about the potential long term impact on the materials that go to make up a modern hull.
 
I asked a well known ultrasonic antifouling manufacturer the simple question "dose it work then?". The answer was not yes, but "eerm..." then he went on about lab tests..... That answered my question.
 
Tender_aft said:
1) It would need to be tuned to the each hull otherwise it wouldn't be the correct frequency for those pesky organisms or give full coverage across the hull.
2) How can you possibly find sound waves that work on both algae and barnacles, that's like blowing a dog whistle and assuming all animals will react.
Click to expand...

I think the Jaycar version sweeps through a range of frequencies so they may well have this covered.
 
It occurs to me that the one place I've never seen a barnacle growing is on top of another barnacle - is there some chemical message at play that we could be exploiting?
 
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