Antifoul - options

[Joshandemma 1]

Last December we sanded all the antifoul off our sail boat and applied two coats of Utlra 2 from International. We followed the directions in terms of coats etc.  Despite lost of use, love and attention and a full clean down a few months back we are getting a lot of growth, more than Ive seen with other products on other boats we've owned. I generally antifoul every two years. Given performance of the Ultra 2 Im looking at alternatives and would welcome any suggestions.

 

 

[maharg 2]

I have found Hempel to work well for me. Good balance of price vs performance.

[ScottiE 174]

I've had the same issue with Ultra 2 on the latest application - also not impressed.  The typical off the shelf a/foul products are basically useless I think.

[ballystick 79]

I have found Hempel Globic NCT to be reasonable, better than Altex No.5 and similar to the original Micron 66 and at a reasonable cost plus less fussy to apply. That is it can be applied over existing antifouls in most cases. Other local yachties have found a similar story.

[Frank 182]

I use Hemples and agree with the comments above, but has anyone tried Macglide or Flowsilikon from MPSNZ ? these are silicon coatings of some sort.

. We have a small test board in our local estuary and the fouling rate is about the same but it wipes off so easily it is damn near falling off. The coating is tough so when cleaning you are not losing the AF like with ablative.

 

Anecdotally I hear it is very expensive and must be applied by an approved technician, also like Copper Coat it is good for several years apparently.

 

Keen to hear of any experiences with it.

 

Frank

 

 

[Ladyhawk 37]

RedLine, a part time racer down here in Tauranga, had FlowSilikon applied 3 years ago I think it was. One of the owners of the boat is the owner of the hardstand, so it always got a waterblast at the beginning of race season, and was looked after pretty well. They've removed it as they've found they cant go fast enough for it to self clean, it used to slime up pretty quickly. I think its got normal old hard antifoul on it now. To be fair, I think if you can dive and wipe your hull every 3 weeks or so, then it'd be a great product, but it wont look after itself....

[Ladyhawk 37]

1 hour ago, lateral said:

Thanks, as  I was seriously contemplating that.

Give Bruce at Bridge Marina Travelift a call,  he'll give you his unadulterated opinion 👍 021 685 438

[Dave 11]

So, I went with the MacGlide from MPS.  I was keen to explore options other than conventional antifouling and following a bit of research I decided that I'd give this system a go.  Due to a combination of factors the boat has been sitting on a mooring up the Weiti River for six months now and has got a fairly 'healthy' layer of slime on it.  I have not dived on the boat for a couple of reasons: a) I'm a wuss, and b) I wanted to give the product a decent test of it's claimed performance as a self cleaning film.  Fingers crossed I'll be sailing the boat in two to three weeks time, at which point I'm hoping the investment I've made will see me return to the mooring with a squeaky clean bum.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Dave

[jay 3]

I've had Silikon from MPS for two years now and am happy with product keeping in mind there is no perfect solution. I do dive before races to give the boat a wipe-down which is relatively easy using a small 12v hookah. After lockdown and not cleaning for two months it had a fair amount of growth, which wiped off with bare hands. I did have some damage to the bow from a fergie buoy, my fault and since replaced with standard ball mooring, which was relatively easy to repair. Yes - it was expensive, but time it saves me in being easy to clean is worth it for me. Happy to answer questions if anyone wants more specific info. 

[Frank 182]

9 hours ago, jay said:

I've had Silikon from MPS for two years now and am happy with product keeping in mind there is no perfect solution. I do dive before races to give the boat a wipe-down which is relatively easy using a small 12v hookah. After lockdown and not cleaning for two months it had a fair amount of growth, which wiped off with bare hands. I did have some damage to the bow from a fergie buoy, my fault and since replaced with standard ball mooring, which was relatively easy to repair. Yes - it was expensive, but time it saves me in being easy to clean is worth it for me. Happy to answer questions if anyone wants more specific info. 

Hi Jay, could you advise the size of the yacht, the ballpark cost and what sort of prep was required, perhaps also how long the process took.

 

chrs

 

[jay 3]

10 hours ago, Frank said:

Hi Jay, could you advise the size of the yacht, the ballpark cost and what sort of prep was required, perhaps also how long the process took.

 

chrs

 

Silikon wrap for a 9 meter yacht was approx $5k installed excluding prep 2 years ago. It is priced by the sq meter. Best to speak with MPS about recommended prep. Generally clean off all the old crap and put a nice sealing primer coat on for good adhesion, taking care to get good adhesion on this coating. Leave a few days before the silikon is applied. They did the application in one day.

[2flit 52]

On 5/05/2020 at 5:13 PM, Joshandemma said:

Last December we sanded all the antifoul off our sail boat and applied two coats of Utlra 2 from International. We followed the directions in terms of coats etc.  Despite lost of use, love and attention and a full clean down a few months back we are getting a lot of growth, more than Ive seen with other products on other boats we've owned. I generally antifoul every two years. Given performance of the Ultra 2 Im looking at alternatives and would welcome any suggestions.

 

 

 We also used Ultra-2 last February. I prepped the boat with lots of sanding (even to the point of using Primocon on the entire underwater surface of the amas) then paid the boatyard to spray the Ultra-2.   We then spent the month of March at BOI marina and the bottom had a sea of barnacles like I have never seen before, but I only have experience in the tropics and North America. Dove and scraped...We returned for three weeks in July and they came right back.  I've been diving  recently to knock them off but the water sure is allot colder now!

[Fish 0]

BoI has a barnacle problem...

so its not necessarily the AF, but our EPA did take all of the useful stuff out of AF, incase it harms marine organisms.... many well regarded AF's have effectively stopped working since then. One name brand has withdrawn from the market.

Would this silikon wrap work on a prop shaft? our prop speed is a bit buggered, and I'd like to keep the barnacles off, or at least get them off every time I spin the prop... I'm also concerned barnacle growth on the shaft is leading to a buggered cutless bearing, because the growth is blocking water flow over the bearing. Is that likely, or m I just getting paranoid?

[Frank 182]

12 hours ago, jay said:

Silikon wrap for a 9 meter yacht was approx $5k installed excluding prep 2 years ago. It is priced by the sq meter. Best to speak with MPS about recommended prep. Generally clean off all the old crap and put a nice sealing primer coat on for good adhesion, taking care to get good adhesion on this coating. Leave a few days before the silikon is applied. They did the application in one day.

Chrs for that ! I wonder if a wrap would be prone to damage from travel lift slings ? particularly with heavy displacement yachts.

[jay 3]

4 hours ago, Frank said:

Chrs for that ! I wonder if a wrap would be prone to damage from travel lift slings ? particularly with heavy displacement yachts.

MPS supplies carpet pads for the travel lift to protect the wrap so damage is not an issue for my light displacement boat. I think heavier boats should be ok as well, but suggest speaking with MPS on their experience here. 

The aggressive Bay of Islands barnacles are one of the reasons I went with Silikon. They are seasonal from approx Feb - April when water is warmest. Generally I swim to clean the bottom often enough that I don't get these barnacles with the Silikon, however when I cleaned the boat after lockdown, I did have some barnacles adhering to the silikon. They easily pop off with my finger though with no damage. 

 

[NorthlandYS 1]

to follow this up which Hempel is better? I think only the cheaper one available in multipule colors? 

also there is  new Altex 60, but it is just about the most expensive option at around 400ish for 4L

have also used PPG ABC in the past and i believe thats available at Norsand in Whangarei. 

on my cat 12 months and 8,000 miles ago i used Petit Hydrocoat on the port hull and Seahawk Monterey on starboard. Both have basically been a disappointment, but the Hydrocoat is very thin in many areas and probably needs atleast a serious touchup ASAP. 

what are the rules these days for painting on grids/ sand bars. no sanding of course just a litre or 2 to keep that port hull going until i do a haul and likely topsides repaint also in April or May?

Cheers,

Jeff

[Joshandemma 1]

On 5/05/2020 at 5:13 PM, Joshandemma said:

Last December we sanded all the antifoul off our sail boat and applied two coats of Utlra 2 from International. We followed the directions in terms of coats etc.  Despite lost of use, love and attention and a full clean down a few months back we are getting a lot of growth, more than Ive seen with other products on other boats we've owned. I generally antifoul every two years. Given performance of the Ultra 2 Im looking at alternatives and would welcome any suggestions.

 

 

To follow up on my earlier post...we sanded back the Ultra 2 a few months back and painted on another lot. The only thing I’d did different was to use a lower nap roller. The new stuff is like a different product working much better than the last lot. Used less paint, was smoother finished too. 

[NorthlandYS 1]

2 hours ago, Tamure said:

jotun have a product that comes in red only and lasts for about 4 years- dont know the name of it but its for commercial shipping.

Available in NZ?

[CarpeDiem 535]

On 31/07/2020 at 8:17 PM, Dave said:

So, I went with the MacGlide from MPS.  I was keen to explore options other than conventional antifouling and following a bit of research I decided that I'd give this system a go.  Due to a combination of factors the boat has been sitting on a mooring up the Weiti River for six months now and has got a fairly 'healthy' layer of slime on it.  I have not dived on the boat for a couple of reasons: a) I'm a wuss, and b) I wanted to give the product a decent test of it's claimed performance as a self cleaning film.  Fingers crossed I'll be sailing the boat in two to three weeks time, at which point I'm hoping the investment I've made will see me return to the mooring with a squeaky clean bum.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Dave

How did this work out?

[Dave 11]

Thanks for the reminder CD, I'd intended to post an update on the MacGlide post sailing and hopefully have some photos/video to share but I haven't actually managed to use the system as intended yet so was holding off until I had done so.  In any case here's some impressions that I have so far.

The boat had a fairly thick layer of slime on it with some obvious small barnacle action and hard wormy type things on it after about 8 months up the river.  On the initial sail I managed to get the speed up to 10kts for reasonable periods but there was no perceptible self cleaning evident after the sail.  I subsequently dove on the boat and cleaned the hull; I used a really soft sponge and the majority of the fouling came off very easily, one gentle wipe was enough to get rid of it.  However, there were patches of some sort of plaque-like growth, some quite large (dinner plate size) that required dislodging with my fingers.  It did come off easily enough I suppose, although I was concerned that it might have damaged the film but I'm yet to confirm this.  Overall really easy to clean.

The next sails were excellent, huge performance increase as you'd expect, and the hulls (trimaran) remained clean.  As it was only a few days between outings though there wasn't time for the hulls to foul much.  I haven't managed to get out to the boat for three weeks now so when I do I'm expecting to see a slimy bum without much crustacean growth...hopefully.  I'll decide then whether to sail and see if it cleans, or clean it and go for a sail.  The driver for that will be the amount of hard fouling I find.

Sorry this has been long winded, I mentioned at the start that I hadn't used the system as it was designed.  I'm not disappointed at the amount of growth it had, nor it's persistence, as I admit I didn't give it a fair go.  It appears likely that if sitting on a mooring without use it will need cleaning periodically (3-4 weeks?) but if the boat is used regularly it will do what it says on the tin.  

One last comment - once the hard fouling (barnacles, worms etc.) had gained a foothold I noticed that fish were feeding off the hull.  As a result there are areas around the waterline where the fish have nibbled the wrap and left a fingernail shaped and sized divot in the silicon.

More to come...