Bottom Paint Technology

Jul 15, 2014
7
S2 9.2A Ford Yacht Club
There are a lot of new bottom paints out there. What do you like or dislike. Why?
Have you tried anything bizarre? Did it work or not?
Are you in Freshwater or Saltwater?
Cruise or Race?
 

ToddS

.
Sep 11, 2017
248
Beneteau 373 Cape Cod
Saltwater - Cruise - New England (location I think is a key variable, though you didn't ask that). I'm admittedly a cheapskate. I've been in the same harbor for 18 years, and was happy for the first 16 with (relatively inexpensive) West Marine store-brand CPP+ ablative paint... blue. My boat for the first 16 years could just squeeze by on 1 gallon of paint... One good full coat would use about 3/4 of a gallon, and then I would apply the last quart as a second coat on leading edges and near waterline and on rudder... places likely to see the most "wear". I would do this every-other-year, and all was well. I got a new boat 2 seasons ago... and it is just big enough that I need a second gallon... also switched to black (same product though) and while it did a good job keeping barnacles and critters off, it SEEMED to have way more "slime" growth as the summer progressed. No barnacles, no other problems... just unsightly brownish slime visible just below the water line. A little swimming with a scrubby pad/brush removed it (and some ablative paint as well), but this seemed different worse than with my old boat.

Possibility 1: I'm getting old/senile and it was always slimy, and I just don't remember
Possibility 2: With the old boat, I didn't notice because everything looked old and tired... with the new boat, the contrasting niceness of the rest of the boat brought my attention to the ugly marine growth.
Possibility 3: The weather, or climate change, or pollution in my harbor, or a giant-evil-migrating-blob-of-algae arrived in the dark of night and somehow changed the environment my boat sits in, which happens to line up with a weakness in my specific paint's attributes. (Other boats in the harbor seem no better or worse recently, but use various different paints.
Possibility 4: Maybe the black is somehow different... either in ingredients (unlikely), or in how it absorbs sunlight, or is somehow appealing to algae.
Possibility 5: Maybe the guys at the factory changed the recipe slightly... while I searched around and there seems to be no advertised change, that doesn't necessarily mean nothing changed.
Possibility 6: I got a bad batch.

It's not horrible... and as a cheapskate, and non-racer, non-perfectionist, I can live with good performance instead of great... and in all likelihood it is some combination of all 6 of the possibilities I listed, with probably another factor or two I'm overlooking. My advice would be to ask around (which you're doing), but specifically look for what others in YOUR LOCATION(S) are using with success.

As a side note, I painted my prop with Petit Prop Coat and Barnacle Barrier spray paint... and was LESS than happy. While I admittedly didn't fanatically prep the prop to super-smoothness, and that's my fault. I did SOME prep, and there wasn't lose paint on it or anything, and the paint seemed to be a bit pricey, allow barnacles to grow, and chip off in lots of random places around my (folding/feathering) prop. Sure its a tough place to exist as paint... but it didn't do what it said it would nearly as well as I had hoped. Not sure what I'll do in the spring with that...
 
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Nov 12, 2009
238
J/ 32 NCYC, Western Lake Erie
Are you at the Ford Yacht Club on the west end of Lake Erie? If so, you sail in the same water we sail - we're at North Cape YC. About 3 years ago we switched to E-Paint. It is probably the best bottom paint we've ever used, with one caveat. The boat bottom comes out so clean in the fall that we don't have to power wash or scrub. I should add that the boat gets sailed multi times every week so any growth does not have much time to get started.

Now, the one problem - adhesion! We put the new E-Paint over an existing bottom paint that the E-Paint representative said should be compatible. We sanded the old paint with 80 grit and did multiple solvent wipes.
Every fall we have several quarter to silver dollar size spots where the paint has come off. If we power washed I'm sure lots more paint would come off. Instead we just touch up the bare spots in the spring. It's not as pretty as a faired new bottom job, but I'm convinced that by mid summer it's faster than all the VC 17 bottoms that have started to slime over and get the black spider web growth that now shows up in Lake Erie.
 
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capta

.
Jun 4, 2009
4,766
Pearson 530 Admiralty Bay, Bequia SVG
I have spent the last 8 years searching for an antifouling paint that does what it is advertised to do. I've talked to other owners and professional captains and not one has given a favorable recommendation for any antifouling paint, down here in the eastern Caribbean (salt water).
The last time we painted the bottom it was with outdated paint we got for us$7.00 a gallon and it antifouled and stayed on the boat better than the us$300.00+ a gallon Sea Hawk paint we had previously applied!
Bottom Paint Technology=oxymoron!
 
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Feb 20, 2011
7,990
Island Packet 35 Tucson, AZ/San Carlos, MX
FWIW, some friends say that it doesn't matter how much you spend on bottom paint. You'll stii be reapplying it in two years' time.
Sea of Cortez experience here.
 

capta

.
Jun 4, 2009
4,766
Pearson 530 Admiralty Bay, Bequia SVG
I could whip you up something that would work very well.... and also get you arrested if anyone found out you put it on your boat.:biggrin:

Better living through chemistry.
As long as it didn't eat holes in the guys painting it on, there's no one down here that would care what I used as antifouling paint.
 
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Jul 15, 2014
7
S2 9.2A Ford Yacht Club
Are you at the Ford Yacht Club on the west end of Lake Erie? If so, you sail in the same water we sail - we're at North Cape YC. About 3 years ago we switched to E-Paint. It is probably the best bottom paint we've ever used, with one caveat. The boat bottom comes out so clean in the fall that we don't have to power wash or scrub. I should add that the boat gets sailed multi times every week so any growth does not have much time to get started.

Now, the one problem - adhesion! We put the new E-Paint over an existing bottom paint that the E-Paint representative said should be compatible. We sanded the old paint with 80 grit and did multiple solvent wipes.
Every fall we have several quarter to silver dollar size spots where the paint has come off. If we power washed I'm sure lots more paint would come off. Instead we just touch up the bare spots in the spring. It's not as pretty as a faired new bottom job, but I'm convinced that by mid summer it's faster than all the VC 17 bottoms that have started to slime over and get the black spider web growth that now shows up in Lake Erie.
Yes, that's me up at Ford Yacht Club on Grosse Ile. Stop by for a cocktail sometime.
 

capta

.
Jun 4, 2009
4,766
Pearson 530 Admiralty Bay, Bequia SVG
I should add that the boat gets sailed multi times every week so any growth does not have much time to get started.
Unfortunately, it's an old wive's tale that how often you take your boat out has any bearing on how much growth you get. For instance, read up on the last GGR and the trouble those sailors had with growth on their boats even though they were sailing 24/7 for months, cold water or warm, trade winds or Southern Ocean gales.
 
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