Prop glop

[Terry in Naples]

I ordered some of this because i am tired of diving on the prop and scraping barnacles. Here in fla we keep the boat in the water year round. Every few months you have to scrape the prop. Any help is worth it. I dive with a hooka but still it is a pain. Anyone else ever use this? I will post my results.

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

Please do keep us updated on your results.

I have tried everything known to man (and a few which aren't) to keep my prop clean and nothing has worked. The problem I've found is that it's stripped within the first few hours of motoring

 

[CalebD]

I thought that Propspeed was the ultimate prop coating (ultimate price too!)?
Never heard of Prop glop before.

 

[Ken13559]

Propshield will last probably about 3 months.

 

[Cool Beans]

Aside from Prop glop, is it effective to run the engine in forward/reverse once a week to help shed any growth before it takes hold?

 

[Charles Erwin]

Interesting - but some say when zinc quantity is on the lesser side (or missing) the limpets/barnacles are much less a problem. Thus, too many shaft zincs seems to be coincident with more barnacle attachment.

PropSpeed is very good. And where the prop is coated the surface is no longer in contact with seawater - so zinc quantity required to make 50% consumption per change goes down. This shows up on power boats especially since commonly these have manganese bronze prop(s) and plenty of shaft exposed to seawater.

Charles

 

[finding41]

What about Teflon? It works for eggs in a pan. Why not for mussels and barnacles? It's really slippery stuff! Or has it been tried?

 

[Charles Erwin]

PropSpeed is such an attempt but silicone is the slippery part - I think.

Charles

 

[ironhors42]

youtube.com has video of prop glop of a prop that was in water for six months, it seem this stuff last up to 8 to 10 months in salt water elements, for cheap snake oil I going to give this a try also.
So take look at video.

 

[fstbttms]

Interesting - but some say when zinc quantity is on the lesser side (or missing) the limpets/barnacles are much less a problem. Thus, too many shaft zincs seems to be coincident with more barnacle attachment.

20,000+ hull cleanings, and I have never seen a correlation between zinc quantity and barnacle fouling. Just sayin'.

PropSpeed is very good. And where the prop is coated the surface is no longer in contact with seawater - so zinc quantity required to make 50% consumption per change goes down.

It sounds as if you are saying that the parts of the running gear that are coated with Prop Speed do not need zinc anode protection.

 

[fstbttms]

youtube.com has video of prop glop of a prop that was in water for six months, it seem this stuff last up to 8 to 10 months in salt water elements, for cheap snake oil I going to give this a try also.
So take look at video.

I just watched the video and I gotta say, I was underwhelmed. The narrator shows various areas of an outboard engine propellor that had been partially treated with Prop Glop and submerged for six months. Admittedly, the treated areas were significantly less foul than the untreated areas, but they were by no means barnacle-free. The narrator shows one blade and says (in essence), "Except for these two large barnacles here and this patch of little ones over there and this smattering of juveniles over here, the blade is free of barnacles." Umm... either it's barnacle-free or it isn't, and it wasn't. The barnacles that were able to grow would definitely still have had a negative effect on the prop's performance. And since the prop was static for the entire test (having simply been hung from a line into the water), we have no way of determining if the rather mediocre product performance would be even that good in real world conditions.

Prop Glop is probably better than nothing, but I am far from convinced that it's the cure for barnacle fouling. I may buy a tube and try it on a few customer's props here in the Bay Area and see how it works. I do like that it comes in an applicator tube. Makes it easy to apply underwater.

 

[capta]

Over the years I've tried everything, including chroming (chrome's pretty slippery stuff) props to keep them free of fouling, all to no avail.
I've operated passenger vessels which run 6 or 7 days a week and the props still foul. Steel aloy, bronze; it makes no difference.
While making crossings on my circumnavigation, before electronic navigation, I used a taffrail log. This is a spinning propeller of sorts on a long line which gives pretty accurate distance and after days of dragging behind the boat all paint would be gone and the bronze would be shiny and polished, but the vessel's prop would be fouled. Go figure. Even if I was powering for days, the prop would foul, while the log's vane would not.
I wish you well with the Prop Glop; it would be fantastic if it works.

 

[Ken13559]

On one passage I made along Straits of Malacca at night, I picked up some seaweed and rope. Didn't stop running engine till day break. Dive in and clear the fouling stuff, found the prop to be nicely polished !! :dance: I think its like those strip of leather truck drivers hangs outside on the mudguard next to the roadwheels, sweeping and cleaning the tyres as the truck travels. Perhaps someone could design/invent something similar for prop?

 

[RECESS]

I used Prop Glop last summer. It was effective for about two months. I dive my boat at least once a month to check on the underside. When it failed, it failed big time. The next time I pull my boat, I will have the running gear primed and painted with anti fouling. I had my boat pulled last summer to change the cutlass bearing and I needed to get it moved to Panama City so I thought using Prop Glop would get me through. I have found it is almost easier to clean the running gear monthly than reapplying this stuff underwater. Cleaning the running gear in February is not as much fun as it sounds.

 

[FourPoints]

What about a plain old copper plating or hot dipped copper on the prop?

 

[Cool Beans]

Ooh! Jump overboard and zip-tie a plastic bag over it Inconvenient if you leave the dock a lot. . .but what about if you leave it sit for the hottest, windless month(s) of summer? Any reason physically covering the prop would be bad?

I guess you'd have to clean the rest of the boats bottom anyways if you left it sit. . .never mind

 

[Chris Patterson]

Hmm, a boat bag?

 

[spraygun]

Covering the prop with a plastic bag really does work.have done many times down in Corpus Christi.A prop can be completely covered in less than two weeks in that water.