Purchase Anti-foul online from overseas - will it be allowed in by customs?

[wheels 543]

 

Can't bring myself to use ablative anymore.

Sorry, your comments are a little confusing. So some question.

What are you specifically wanting from an AF? To make that question more specific, what are the minimum requirements you could live with? The answer can be "answers", or... more than one point of requirement. For instance, some want a clean Hull all year while boat is sitting in Marina, Some want to Race each week and want a smooth Hull fore performance. Some want slime control. Some want to get 2 or 3 yrs between haul outs. And so on.

[Black Panther 1,581]

3 years between haulouts definitely

[ex TL systems 63]

The commercial Coppercoat still seems a good option if you get close to 10 years with in water scrubs every few months. Not to hard if you are living aboard and the water is warm. Perhaps not as much fun on a 60ft mono though but if you just did a little bit each time you went swimming it would not be too bad. Or just let someone else scrub it.

[Black Panther 1,581]

That's the plan

[wheels 543]

 

 

Hard, burnishable,  and easy to scrub growth off in the water.

 

Actually interested in your silicon/epoxy thinners experiment and a few other slipperies.

PTFE, can you spay a molten film of it? Too hot for an epoxy or PE hull?

Yes PTFE can be obtained as a Paint. But whether it can be obtained as a Paint that can be immersed long term, I don't know. Also, just because a surface is slippery in some instances, it does not mean that Marine Growth can not adhere to it. It could be (I simply don't know) that Marine growth could still happily stick to PTFE.

While on that topic, a Metal sprayer just around the corner from KM has the ability to spray Teflon and I asked him if he could spray a prop. He said yes no problem, in fact he had.

Even the metals are sprayed in a special process and although it is hot when it leaves the Gun, it can be sprayed onto Paper and the Paper will not burn. Whether it is economical to spray a Hull in Teflon I have no idea. You would have to ask him. Would it stop marine growth? I don't know that either.

 

The two products I think would be suitable for you would likely be the Epoxy Copper coat as BP and the others have been talking about. Or the other would be the Silicon based slippery stuff. I believe International have one available retail. But possibly needs special application. Hempels have one, but it is commercial only. Both Copper and Silicon are expensive, but will give you ten yrs of service. You would still need to manually clean the Silicon because you need more speed than a Sailboat will give you to self clean.

[wheels 543]

The very early days apparently had problems, so I am told. But apparently there has been much improvement on the Epoxy Copper.
Sanding the  coating to expose the copper should be all you need to do. Don't use any acids. Acids can harm some Epoxy surfaces. You only need to expose new clean copper particles.
I am sorry, I thought your earlier posts were alluding to you putting in copper compounds you would by to spray on fruit trees.
You have to be very careful mixing in these components. The chemicals like Copper Sulphate, would dissolve away very quickly and leave the epoxy surface ruff and useless. Plus you would have an uncontrolled release into the marine environment, which may or may not be good.
But do understand, Epoxy copper coat still requires regular cleaning by hand. Either a good brush/wash or high pressure wash.

[ex TL systems 63]

We had Coppercoat in the tamaki river the frequency of cleaning was not more than other anti foul we have had and slime came off easily

[Fish 0]

We have copper coat in the Weiti. Don't clean it any more regularly than normal AF. Don't get barnacles, but we do get a particularly sticky slime.

We've stopped using a water blaster on it, too slow (may be a shagged water blaster), now we just use a plastic scrapper, I.e. A plastic plastering trowl. Very fast and easy to clean. Give it a hose off and light burnish. Job done.

 

We are happy with it.

[Beccara 25]

So in some of the other forums when claims about an antifoul solution are made that sound good there always seems to be a response of "If it's so good why isn't it the standard we use"

 

Has anyone here had/seen epoxy/copper eiter pro or diy not work? Aside from cost and prep what are the downsides? I'm considering the DIY path but am thinking I may make up some test panels and chuck them under our mooring for a year

[Fish 0]

Some people don't like the level of slime with copper coat, so claim it doesn't work. That aspect is entirely subjective, and depends on how good your previous antifoul is.

It can go for very long times without gross fouling (i.e. just slime).

 

In terms of DIY, do you mean application or product?

 

We applied proper CC ourselves, i.e. DIY. If you are half-pie competent at DIY and reading instructions you can apply CC yourself fine.

As for the DIY product, that question is up to you, but the proper stuff is proven, and I personally wouldn't have thought the cost saving over 10 yrs of a DIY product was worth the shagging around. Just my view of course and have no problem with guys trying DIY.

A massive cost of proper CC is the professional application. The product itself is not too outrageous. If you apply it yourself the payback against normal AF is not long.

[Beccara 25]

Was looking at both DIY application and DIY product. I had been under the incorrection view that coppercoat as a product was a pro only application.

 

 

Thanks for the info, I'll see if i can get a test kit out of them and do an in water test around Whangarei

[wheels 543]

 

Some people don't like the level of slime with copper coat, so claim it doesn't work. That aspect is entirely subjective, and depends on how good your previous antifoul is.

It can go for very long times without gross fouling (i.e. just slime).

And that is the important point right there. What exactly one is happy with in terms of fouling. When we were Havelock Marina based, the fresh water flushing through the Marina kept large growth at bay, but once the AF got old, we would get a slime all over the Hull. That slime would eventually get heavy enough to rob us of 2kts of speed for the same Engine RPM. I always found it interesting that the slime looked smooth and slippery, and yet it robbed so much speed.

For those with smaller boats, it is not so expensive to haul and clean the slime off. But for a boat the size of ours, it costs a fortune and there ain't no way I could scrub it in the water. Technically, that is now no longer allowed anyway, but we won't go there. So for me, Epoxy CC would still mean a 12mnth haul out just to give it a clean and then I would have to sand the Hull to keep it active. So I may as well just haul every 24mths, pressure wash, have the new AF blown on by the yard and I have a clean hull for the next 24mths. That's the way it works for me, but I accept that Epoxy CC covers the needs of others.

 

[waikiore 398]

Wheels is on the money, and for the same reasons I stick to antifoul, simply put the level of fouling on all copper coat jobs that I have seen -working on a hardstand, is unacceptable to me and you have to haul more often than I do -so where is the saving?, on a high speed launch I can see a possible benefit. 

[Fish 0]

We dry out on piles, typically every 6 months, so have no need to actually haul out.

I guess the big point here is we actually have piles available to dry out on. It is beyond me why the powers that be have removed or made it so difficult to use piles, in the face of all these marine incursions. I understand the principle of cleaning boats out of the water, but only when they are heavily fouled.

 

The advantages of copper coat are around it being hard (not ablative) meaning it is easy to clean in the water or on piles. For long distance cruises etc it can be safely cleaned by swimming / snorkelling, and depending on the boat, running up on the beach. I'd imagine Beccara's wharram would be ideal for this.

 

Understand it is not well suited to everyone's needs and situations. But I would think it is a bit of a headache doing a full haul out just to clean off slime. I understand the logic that if you are going to do a full haul to clean slime, you may as well just apply normal AF.

We obviously also need to dry out to change anodes and to clean the shaft and prop.

 

I do note the Gulf Harbour travel lift specifically excludes changing anodes during a lift and wash. You need to pay for a lift wash and hold to change anodes, which comes at an appropriate (or inappropriate) extra cost.

 

For racing, it can be cleaned regularly without shortening the life of the coating. But that said, for hard core racers there is possibly advantages in the new "non-stick" AF's that rely on very regular cleaning.

 

The bottom line is that CC avoids the need for regularly applying AF. We used to do our own, hauling out at the club. We now avoid all the joys of wet sanding the old stuff off, and all the palava of trying to comply with the long list of environmental and containment rules. Rules so illogical it favours dry sanding of toxic AF's over wet sanding - seriously! - No human health risk with dry sanding!

Our overall fouling performance is about the same, even with the nature of slime on CC, and more so with all the active ingredients being banned from normal AF's, and our maintenance time and cost has reduced, so we are happy.

 

Understand though if you pay for a lift and professional application of AF then its probably easier to just stay with that.

[Black Panther 1,581]

I have changed anodes in the water. Is there some reason I shouldn't?

[Fish 0]

I have changed anodes in the water. Is there some reason I shouldn't?

Depends on how long you can hold your breath BP.

No technical reason why you can't change anodes in the water, and I understand you are not a regular user of the Gulf Harbour travel lift 

[Beccara 25]

Of interest, Talking with a few people in the working for NRC in water cleaning of hard antifoul for slime and light fouling is going to be allowed, Scraping barnacles off won't be as it may bring the AF with it so at least where I am and with the Wharram I could clean off the slime that Wheels is talking about

[Black Panther 1,581]

Cool. Yes the plan is a quick swim every day up in the tropics. Can't see a problem. Next trip to gh should be the last for a while.

[Zozza 293]

Cool. Yes the plan is a quick swim every day up in the tropics. Can't see a problem. 

 

Sharks?

Or Crocodiles in Northern Australia?

[Black Panther 1,581]

Sharks can't hurt you. They are not poisonous.