Identifying Bottom Paint

[Marc14857]

Last year, my dealer had to make some warranty repairs to the bottom paint on my H44 as they had not prepared the bottom properly at commissioning. Since they had to totally strip all the bottom paint I took the opportunity to have them apply a barrier coat at my cost. I also asked them to use a black hard epoxy bottom paint and apply a multi season blue ablative Micron CSC over the black so I would have a wear indication.

I'm starting to think about getting ready for spring commissioning and I have a nagging suspicion that they either did not apply the black epoxy and may have just applied a blue epoxy instead of the multi season ablative blue. The blue bottom paint that is on my boat is in excellent condition with no signs of wear or black peaking out, not even on the leading edges of the keel or rudder nor at the waterline. I thought that I should have been able to see some wear. I'm obviously worried about launching the boat with old bottom paint, but on the other hand I don't want to paint the bottom if what is on there is multi season and good to go.

Anyone have any ideas on how to identify which type of bottom paint I have on the boat?

Marc

 

[Warren Milberg]

I think it would pretty easy to find out if you have black paint under the blue: make a small scrape with the edge of screwdirver in some hidden place on your hull. If you have two different colors, the layers should be evident. All you need is a very small scrape and one that may not even need touching up.

As a general rule, I've found that hard, modified epoxy bottom paint is very smooth and will not rub off if you brush it with a bristle brush. It will also burnish if you rub a piece of sandpaper over it. Any ablative paint will be (relatively) less smooth and perhaps dull looking. It will easily rub off on your hand or a brush. I doubt there is any way to determine if the ablative is single or multi-season -- other than the obvious: see how it holds up during the season.

Why do you suspect the dealer didn't do what you ordered? And why would you feel it necessary to put a modified epoxy paint on the barrier coat? Seems to me you could have just used two different colored ablatives? I switched to ablatives a long time ago when I got really, really tired of sanding modified epoxy bottom paints. They are really difficult to remove and, IMHO, do not offer significant water penetration protection.

 

[Marc14857]

As part of the warranty work the dealer was going to strip the existing bottom paint, prep the surface and repaint with the epoxy. I got a little nervous after the botton was stripped as there were several gauges and scrapes in the gelcoat. Several folks at the marina and some on this website recommended that I do the barrier coat as the bottom was already bare and typically the labor is a big part of the barrier coat process which I didn't have to pay. In any event since the first coat of black epoxy paint was included in the warranty work I had them do it and I paid for the ablative. I can't quite figure out why I have the concern except to say that I have recently heard some negative feedback on the dealers service department and as an engineer I tend to be a little anal about things. While I did see the barrier coats go on, I never got to see the actual bottom paint go on. Probably is OK but I tend to have a questioning attitude.