antifoul paint.

perhaps some of you chemical engineers could make a product that makes it easy to remove growth from the bottoms ,,a pre seal,,,like a teflon or something?this would surfice the freshwater boats,,,,longliner

 

As I have said most peple here put a dash of TBT bought from a local shop here.

Aussies swear by horse anti biotics to enhance thier anti fouling paints.

As for propeller protection There is baby oil and a very unusuall one of using felt tip pen ink.

I think this was sparked off by a reader writing in to a British boat mag about how he had noticed that the prop manufacturers marking on the prop remained un fouled after use!!!!!!!


I shall be hauling next week, yet I have not made up my mind if I should enhance this stuff further or not.

It may look pretty obnoxious stuff but does it work.?

 

That's a newie to me, never heard of that one.. Given that the half life of most anti-biotics is only days at most I'd be surprised that it would do anything.

Mychael

 

maybe something was lost in the translation - what Jack meant was Horse 5h1t! makes a change from his usual bull 5h1t

 

Disregarding walrusses worthwile and knowlegable post.

Yes mychael i would agree with you. However it is just one of many addatives that peple seem to think will keep their bottom clean.

Its the comander of the Royal Hong Kong marine police with his felt tip pen that had me on rolling on the floor.

I kid you not.

 

So in Hong Kong (no longer Royal we gave it back to them in '97 - I can see why) there is a department of the marine ploice who spend all day drawing all over the bottom of their boats in felt tip pen to keep back the marine nasties! Arh Poo I can't handle it!!!

 

Mychael, horse antibiotics on the prop will definately give you more horsepower.

I think felt tip pens contain metholated spirits also used as a steralising agent and perhaps could retard growth. Then one would assume that spraying an epoxy sealant with a large amount of sealant would have the same effect.

Now, perhaps we could design a boat wash centre designed after the car wash system where you can have your boat pulled through brushes to remove growth.

Or maybe a lock where you put your boat, the salt water in the lock is passed through an electric cell to chlorinate the water and kill the growth then just brush the growth off as you do in a swimming pool.

Oh, my imagination runs wild at times.

Poida

 

Or be like my mate that owns a trailer sailer and has none of those problems.
Although personally a TS is not my choice as a boat.

Mychael

 

not bad poida,,,a boat wash?..why not.....a guy could make some money here .......longliner

 

I think they have one!!! Its some kind of automated robot with revolving blades that goes under the hull (obviously) and is held in place by bouancy.

It is for oil tankers really. I would think a machine like that would strip your gell coat off and rip your props off.

Underwater fouling is very serious, it is the most troublesome part of boating --as far as I am concerned. Not only does the paint cost a lot of money it has to be done. Hauling out is not cheap and of course the labour --plus its a lousy job.

With out it we burn 2-3 times more fuel and cut speed in half,-not to mention poisoning the aquatic environment.

What is it---just some little tiny sea life that have no more brains than walrus, attaches itself to a surface with unbelievable adhesion that we can not even simulate. Almost a molecular bond.

One would think that we would be able to combat this small creature. Or at least make paint they dont like without killing ourselves in the process.

We can go to the moon and communicate across the planet in seconds but cant keep nasties of the boat.

It seems we have an imbalance in technological progress sometimes.

 

If we keep constantly on the move the critters will not be able to attach themselves to the bottom of our boats. So the answer is to get off the computer and sail, motor, whatever, but we have to keep the boat moving, which means some of us are going to have to do some work. Naaa... forget it bad idea. Where can I get 4in wide felt pens, Lots of them? LOL

 

Jack I can tell you how to keep one nasty off boats, but it would be inpolite (well ok put a picture of me on the sides and you'd stay well away - that's one nasty sorted out - 'the marine borer-Jacus frostus'

 

Copper plated claim

From http://www.coppercoat.com/about.htm

"The results have arrived from Coppercoat trials undertaken on two new Sunseeker 82 Yachts in Dubai. When these new boats arrived in Dubai both sported the factory approved conventional anti-foul and achieved the factory speed claims when sea-trialled. Both were then lifted and the anti-foul replaced with Coppercoat. When re-tested, both had gained almost 2 knots of boat speed. Ali Al Jafla, Chairman of Sunseeker Middle East reported "We are amazed and delighted - this scale of increased performance was unexpected and helps to set our boats apart."

Not only are the boats faster, but more economic too. Running at full speed the choice of Coppercoat proved to save approximately 20 gallons of fuel per hour."

Next year, we in the UK could be paying £1 per litre for diesel or about £4-60 per gallon. If the savings really are as good as this, that's an operating cost reduction of almost £100 per hour!!

Pericles

 

When I worked with an oil response company for a few years they went through a whole bunch of environmentally friendly paints (we affectionately called them yogurt based) after the TDT regulations started taking effect.

They didn't work worth a crap. We tried "Teflon" paint that was supposed to be so slick that nothing would stick to it. We hauled the boat out in 6 months and it had old growth muscles and kelp attached to the bottom. I figured that there is a definite green market for this one. Aquaculture at its finest.

The next experiment was a copper bottom paint...on an aluminum boat. Made a hell of battery. They had to replace about 40% of the hull plating in a years time.

I guess that could actually work - make a very thick hull and use the ablative properties of aluminum being wasted away to keep the critters off.

I like my old micron bottom paint (with TBT) - it lasted on the hull for four years and never had a real issue with bottom growth. It didn't taste to bad either.

--Chuck

 

I've got a test running on Rhino Coat (truck bed liner). The results look very promising so far.