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Why cant we buy this Antifoul


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Yes but was it boat shaped? Even liddle water grebblies make mistakes sometimes Wheels.

 

It does sound like coppercoat has something 'special' going on - Fishs' earlier post in this thread indicates little or no growth after an extended period of little use.

Having said that, like many others I looked at CC quite a few years ago and just could not justify the cost. It also seems mooring location makes a big difference.

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Sorry Wheels, you don't need to haul out with Copper Coat, that is the whole point of it. You can dry out on pile and waterblast, broom off, or dive or snorkel. We haven't burnished our CC, the CC literature doesn't appear to mention the need for burnishing, but you don't need to haul out to do that either.

In the context of racing, yes it would need a clean before a big race. I used to do that with my International anitfoul, but cleaning it every other month meant the AF had a short life before requiring a re-coat. CC being hard, you can go to town on the cleaning, both intensity and frequency, and not adversely affect the product life.

 

As for the glyphosphate, I think the issue that has come about is genetically modified wheat, being round-up ready wheat (by Monsanto). It is resistant to glyphosphate, farmers are spraying the weedkiller over the crop, this knocks down the weeds and increases production, however residue is now starting to enter the food chain, primarily in your sandwiches. The only point of contention around this is how much residue is getting through, and what a 'safe' level is...

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We put Coppercoat onto our Cat during July 2012. The coating is still going strong.

 

For racing we would want to give it a wipe every 2/4 weeks. However for cruising we can get away with a wipe every 2/3 months. We left it nearly 6 months at one point and it took a bit of effort to wipe off, but according to the diver that did it at the time it was much easier that he thought it was going to be.

 

So we are at least one full antifoul ahead now, so are now past the break even point.

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Dont want to stoke the fire too much but I am very much on the fench about coppercoat. If it's so great then why is it's use (from what i can see) so limited? Is anyone big using it commercially?

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We antifouled with No 5 in 2013 still going good, a fast motor before each race washes everything off, I see Copper Coat on the boats at westhaven when they haul for other maintenance and frankly I would not accept that amount of growth on one of my boats.

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Out of interest Waikiore, how fast do you need to motor to get everything off before a race? I have been interested in 'cleaning the boat by sailing' for some time, but was developing the understanding only power boats could really develop enough speed to get the hull clean that way.

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Fish, i think one important point for us to think about, it is easy to quickly clean the bottom of a smaller boat, but mine and most certainly BP's would be a different story. ;-)
Coppercoat is supposed to be lightly sanded every 12mths to ensure fresh copper is at the surface. That copper will slowly corrode away over the 12months and then you sand it again.

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I don't know if the current "copper coat" is the same product as one we tried way back in '94 but we certainly had problems.

 From memory, it was a water based epoxy and the copper grains were stirred in just before application.  We spent many, many hours sanding down the old antifoul, long boarding until we couldn't stand it no more, followed by a couple of coats of epoxy primer.  When the agent at the time sprayed on the coppercoat, the finish was unbelievably rough, way past orange peel and into avocado type texture.  We expressed concern.  He said it would flatten out.  It didn't.  

Months later, in the small claims court, he produced a model yacht about two feet long and pointed out that it had only taken him an evening to sand the copper coat smooth.  The room went silent as both the adjudicator and ourselves looked at his model and extrapolated that to our 35 foot not unbeamy yacht.  

No surprise that we won the case but after three or four years when we'd sanded and "renewed" it about three times, we gave up.  Much more sanding later we were back to where we started.  More epoxy primer and put on Warpaint.  We would get nearly three years out of Warpaint, admittedly scrubbing muchly for the last six months.

 Warpaint is highly underrated in my humble, we use Micron 77 now (that's right, 77 not 66) but only because our current boat came with Micron 66.   The Micron 77 has been on a year and it's still a sponge off for racing.  

Not keen on going back to the "antifouling every year" days and in the end, I think it's cheaper in the long run to buy the better antifouls.

Going back to the Copper Coat, I sincerely hope it's a vastly improved, or different, product  because otherwise it's going to be hullo Mr Longboard again for some people and believe me, it's a LOT harder than sanding antifoul.

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Hi Chippie,

Copper coat is definitely not applied by spray, it's rollered, so I would say it is a substantially different product. A heavy and thick two pot expoxy that is rollered on in multiple layers, tacky on tacky.

 

Wheels, I don't understand your point, sponging / wiping or otherwise cleaning coppercoat is no different to how you would clean your hull with any other antifoul, so size shouldn't be relevant. I am assuming you don't clean your hull and just periodically haul out for a new application of AF?

 

And you definitely don't sand copper coat. There has been talk of burnishing it, but I have never been able to find any reference to burnishing in the copper coat literature. I do wonder if the talk of burnishing is some sort of generally accepted confusion, or old wives tale around yacht clubs. Do you have any references for burnishing, or is that just your understanding?

We have never burnished our copper coat. its working to an acceptable level, so I don't see the point in any extra work if its not warranted. It would also reduce the life span I would have thought.

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from memory,the copper coat from the 90s was a pack resin type,when cured you had to sand resin off to expose copper and i think we gave a rub once a year to keep copper exposed.   the last boat had copper coat on and just water blasted it,4 yrs on and stills seems fine, initial expense stops me from doing current vessel but may  have another look?

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With the current price of copper dropping dramatically lately, one would hope the price of Antifouls based on copper would come down. Anyone think i am being a tad over optimistic? ;-)
Fish, have a gander at this.
http://www.mecmarine.co.nz/faq/
Scroll down the the bit on Maintenance and you will see that they say after several years, it will possibly need a sand. As harrytom just stated above, it is possible the recipe has been played with over the years and improved upon.
However, I do have one scratching of head issue with the comment they have made that after the copper corrodes to oxide, it then further degrades to Cuprous Hydroxide. I am pretty sure you can't make cuprous hydroxide this way. You have to react it with Hydrochloric Acid to get that. Also i am thinking, but what about the Resin that once encased the copper grain. That would still be there and that is why it needs sanding. I guess that if the copper content to resin content has been greatly increased from the original recipe, maybe that helps.
I agree that I don't know what burnishing would achieve though.
Also in the bit about application, they say you can air spray, but not airless spray. That would take one heck of a spray gun I would think ;-)

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I have copper coat that has been on over 10 years although touched up around the waterline 3 years ago. Easy application and smooth. Overtime became a little rougher. It is OK but not as good as a high quality antifoul. Its been over 3 years since last full haulout but water blasted every 3-4 months. I am time rich-cash poor and have access to piles so suites my lifestyle. At Opua the lovely helpful and ever so friendly ladies (not) informed me in their tactful way that the copper coat had to be renewed every 6 months and I needed a receipt to prove it. 

Would I go this way again....sit on the fence but given the ability  to save on biannual haulout probably yes.

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Haha Wheels, if your hoping the price of copper based antifouls will drop, surely the price of cheese, butter and yoghurt would have halved by know, along with the dairy payout for milk solids?

 

Thanks for the link. It does confirm cc doesn't need an annual burnish, but does confirm why people talk about burnishing it. We've had cc now for a couple of years and haven't burnished yet, so I guess if the performance drops off Ill have to give it a rub.

 

I believe the key innovation with cc is that the resin very slowly ablates in the water, in combination with the copper oxidising, allowing fresh copper to come to the surface. It doesn't have a biocide, which some good antifouls do have, which may allow a basic slime layer, but certainly after neglecting our boat for near on two years there were no mussels, oysters or other serious marine growth.

 

And I do stand corrected on the spray application, but bugger me, after having applied that stuff with a roller, it's beyond me how you could get it through an air gun, it is sticky, viscous and has a high solids content. I would think it would be like spray gunning plaster, which is consistent with the avocado rough finish mentioned in a post earlier.

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