Hi, I've owned (or adopted) my 20+ year old Gemini for about 5 years and bottom painted her 3 times so far - getting ready for the 4th time less than ten months after previous paint.
I used a very high end ablative with bioside, two coats with 3 at the waterline as I always do. Moored in a lagoon off Lake Worth Lagoon in South Florida - the testing lab for trouble with bottom paints.
The paint failed immediately - growing lab experiments on the sides and ablating off the leading and trailing edges of the hull within weeks to months. Worse, at the waterline where there were 3 coats, the paint pulled off up to 10 layers of old bottom paint down to the gel coat.
I have no idea what the original zillion coats of paint were, but when I adopted her, I applied one red (flash) coat of ablative paint (slightly lower end from same manufacturer) and two coats of normal blue over a well sanded bottom. Worked fine for nearly 5 years - repainted each time lots of red showed.
Now the manufacturer tells me I must sand down to the gel coat, remove all bottom paint, and paint with a their "low quality" ablative that has moderate copper. Huh? Apparently, the high end paint's chemistry damaged all the other paint's ability to adhere.
What should I really do.
I used a very high end ablative with bioside, two coats with 3 at the waterline as I always do. Moored in a lagoon off Lake Worth Lagoon in South Florida - the testing lab for trouble with bottom paints.
The paint failed immediately - growing lab experiments on the sides and ablating off the leading and trailing edges of the hull within weeks to months. Worse, at the waterline where there were 3 coats, the paint pulled off up to 10 layers of old bottom paint down to the gel coat.
I have no idea what the original zillion coats of paint were, but when I adopted her, I applied one red (flash) coat of ablative paint (slightly lower end from same manufacturer) and two coats of normal blue over a well sanded bottom. Worked fine for nearly 5 years - repainted each time lots of red showed.
Now the manufacturer tells me I must sand down to the gel coat, remove all bottom paint, and paint with a their "low quality" ablative that has moderate copper. Huh? Apparently, the high end paint's chemistry damaged all the other paint's ability to adhere.
What should I really do.
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