hgow do you use your baot??
how do you use your boat?? Does it sit in the water all season long with infrequent sails?? DO you hardcore race???From my experience, (in brackish and salt water)even with bottom paint, if the boat is not being used, "stuff" starts to grow on it. If you are just daysailing/weekending and don't mind a small bit of sanding, then a hard modified epoxy bottom paint (Petit's Unepoxy really is good...or just plain Interlux Bottomkote, which is less expensive) works well, but needs to be reapplied each season. IF you do not want to keep doing that, then an abblative such as Micron CSC (abblative paints wear away as you move the boat through the water thus allowing new chemicals to continually keep critters off). You can tell if you have abblative paint. Just scrub the bottom...If lots of paint scrubs off (you can almost scracth the paint with your fingernail and it will come off) then it probably is abblative.I have both on my hull. LAst season, I sanded about 8 coats of modified epoxy paint (the PO just kept repainting w/o sanding) down to gel coat. After barrier coats, I painted with Unepoxy from Petit. Worked absolutely great. But this season, after a real light sanding, I am applying Micron CSC over it. The Micron will be a different color than the hard Paint. I will be able to see where the paint is wearing off the most at haulout.VC-17 is a teflon based paint that is fast(by most bottom paint standards) I really would suggest that only if you are seriously racing (as the cost of VC-17 is a bit high). If your hull is not as fair as it should be then I believe that the VC is just being wasted on the hull. ( The race boat I am on sands, fairs and repaints VC-17 and burnishes twice a season for a super fast hull.