What is the history of anti fouling ?

I was recently asked the what people did in the old day to keep stuff from growing on their boats. So my question is what did they do long time ago
for anti fouling ?

Frank

 

Here's some anti fouling history . . . .

See also Copper sheathing & Muntz metal.

Cheers,
Angel

 

So before that boats must have been beached and scraped , then maybe cover with pine tar or the like . They must have been in a constant state of rebuild.

 

Sheep's blood mixed with sulfur.

 

Later they used line seed oil mixed with poisons like antimony and cyanide. That worked very well, it even kept the other boats clean in a harbor.

 

chilli peppers can be used mixed with ground up madonna c d,s and black tar varnish, nothing will go near it

 

Ram's fat melted and painted on the bottoms. Also, tar.

 

"Whitebottom" was lime and tallow and used in the eastern US. I believe this is what was traditional on Arabic Dhows too.
UK fishing vessels were tarred on the bottom with pitch in the seams.
A recurrent act there was "breaming" where flame was used to burn off marine growth and soften the tar and pitch, enabling a pitch mop to be run over the surface and smooth it up.
And here's Wiki's reference on bottom treatments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing