Powerwashing question

[Louis]

This spring, I put a fresh coat of ablative paint on the hull. In two weeks I willl be taking the boat out of the water for the winter. When the marina takes it out, I would like to have them powerwash the bottom. This may sound silly, but my question is, will this powerwashing remove a lot of the paint I applied this spring?

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

yes but, unless they are really aggressive, removal should be minimal and after all, what choice do we have? Power washing the bottom is preferable to leaving all the critters and slime to dry on the hull and scraping it all off once dried will result in removing even more paint.
At our marina, every boat gets power washed as part of the haul charge.

 

[Jim Rushing]

When they power wash the bottom, only the slime should come off. If any of the paint flakes off, then it wasn't a good paint job to begin with. If it flakes off, then retouch the spots after the hull drys out.

 

[Bob V]

Type of paint counts

some boats are painted with ablative paint and that will come of fairly easily as it is designed to ablate. If your bottom paint in non-ablative then it should not come off with pressure washing. A good ablative paint job should "erode" gradually and if the person using the pressure washer is not too aggressive there should be a minimal amount of paint removed.

Now since it is going to be on the hard anyway, it would be a perfect time to add another coat of bottom paint. This is especially true if your paint is ablative.

 

[RAD]

Ablative paint & power washing

For years I would buy the best ablative paint and get 3 years without pulling the boat in the winter then I found a yard that lets you do all your own work and realized after painting every year when hauled that they were probably washing off expensive bottom paint so last spring I put West Marine brand at half the price (made by Pettit and same stuff I used to buy) and I'm due to come out in a month and we'll see if the paint held up as good as the expensive stuff
After a look under the boat while cleaning the water line in August all looked well

 

[Louis]

Thanks for all the advice. This my first year owning and maintaing a boat and it has been quite an adventure. I want to thank all of you for the enormous amount of information that you gladly share with us beginners!