Go to an auto body paint supply shop and buy silicone wax lifter .....
The very same compound used in prepping automobiles for painting and to prevent 'birds-eyes' in the paint - at half the price of 202. VC also is thinned with acetone so you can additionally wash the hull several times with acetone to help remove oils and silicones. Once you get a good first coat of VC down any additional coats will be very easy. I use WEST foam rollers. On my I20/M20 scow Ive been using VC for years, but I wet-sail/race this on a large fresh water lake and simply scrub the bottom every now and then instead of using the biolux additive. This is an ultralight planing hull so I keep the VC smooth by occasional hauling and 'burnishing' it flat (no need for aggressive sanding) as once the boat gets up to planing speed all the crud simply falls off quickly. The smoother the finish the easier for the crud to fall off; regularly sailing keeps the hull clean. Burnishing, taking large wads of stiff clay-filled newspaper .... Sunday Magazine paper works best .... and simply 'pressure-rubbing' on any roughness until silky-smooth will result in quite a quite slick hull .... not a fast nor easy job. Burnishing simply 'pushes' the relatively soft surface VC into the valleys and flattens the peaks. Successive years application can go very fast ... (just to fill-in any surface roughness that develops) by applying thin stripes of VC with a 4" foam roller then immediately flattening with a larger polyethylene trowel (one of the large WEST SYSTEM yellow trowels), then re-burnishing. Since VC uses acetone as its solvent and the acetone 'flashes' almost immediately, you have to be VERY fast in striking the rollered-on VC with a trowel ... one hand on the roller immediately followed by the other hand on the trowel ..... the learning curve is quite steep as newly applied VC will soften old VC ... its the acetone !!!! On freshwater I dont need to coat every year, usually every 3-4 years and simply burnish the surface in the intervening years. If your are hard-core racing, burnishing first then flat sanding will prevent a LOT of VC being removed that happens when simply sanding only.
