coprbote experience?

[bill broome]

it's a bottom 'paint' with copper in epoxy. supposed to offer up to three years protection, and be hard enough to stay on the bottom of a trailersailer.

"wonderful", thinks i...

but since the 'neverdull' steak knives wore out quickly, i'm wondering about this 'bote-cote' product.

is it really this good?

[catsketcher]

Bill,

Everyone I know who has this sort of stuff has antifoul on their boats now. 3 tries and 3 strikes as far as the large cat owners I know.

cheers

Phil

[waikikin]

Bill, it makes a "good back up" for antifoul paint, like on minikeels/rudders & might be good on boats that dry out - on a trailer or tidal/mud berth, other than that you gotta like a monthly swim, scrub & scrape. Tube worms you get in the cleaner Sydney waters love it. All the best from Jeff.

[bill broome]

as i feared- if it worked as well as i hoped, who'd buy paint anymore?

[Spiv]

I am surprised by these results, I wanted to use it myself, expecially after reading the testimonials for Coppercoat http://www.coppercoat.com/testimonials.htm
Could it be, as in most products, that some work better than others??

See also this link on how to make your own from a paint supplier http://www.epoxyproducts.com/copper4u.html

I would like to hear some more before discounting the idea altogether.

[waikikin]

Stefano, I'm not dissing the concept altogether, it is a good backup for anti foul, especially if you careen & cant get to or dry out for paint on some areas, I've read the testimonials as well & some seem to have success with it- maybe due to the way they use the vessel & the fouling prevalent in the area, about 15 years or so ago I used & mixed my own using copper powder that was marketed for casting statues & figurines etc, copper, bronze, graphite powder etc & had results equal or better than the copperepoxy products available at the time, one was applied to a lifting ballasted keel that fared very well but mostly was on a mooring in a muddy river & sitting in its own" juice" in the case mostly. I think that mixing your own would provide benifit at lower cost, recently a nieghhbour in a boatyard was applying it but was factoring in the cost of regular paid diving in its maintenance compared & against slipping his very wide vessel, the use of boat bags could be compared on this basis too. All the best from Jeff.

[Nordic Cat]

I had copperboat on my previous cat for around 8 years with reasonably good results. In fact 2 years ago I ground off the antifouling and epoxy on my present boat and redid it with copperboat.

What is important is that you need to sand it back to a copper colour before launching each year. I have sometimes not bothered, and waited a few months (until the water got warm enough, >19C) and then used one of those 3M abrasive pads to give the bottom a scrub.

It works as badly as all the modern eco-friendly stuff that needs redoing nearly every year. I put on 4-5 layers, so it should last me 10-15 years. Ther are also several other boats in out harbour, that have been using it for more than 10 years with OK results. It's not the best around, but sort of middle of the road IMO. The work is alot less though and enviromentally it is very low impact, especially compared to the softer stuff, so- called self polishing.

We need to factor the following in to the equation:

We are up in Denmark, the Baltic sea. Water temperature is seldom above 20C.
Salinity is low, less than 1% in our harbour.

Boats are launched in April and normally pulled out in November.

Copperboat does not prevent growth of all the "green stuff" like algae and a layer of "slime".

I don't know if it would perform better or worse in warmer water if used correctly.

Apparently some commercial shipping use similar stuff, despite the higher price, so maybe it's not so bad?

Alan

[bill broome]

it's maybe not so clear, after all.

depends on the water you're in too, mine is warm muck.

i'll do some experiments, more later if i get a result better than ablative paint.