l am looking for advice on antifoul.

I'm disapointed by the performance of my current antifoul on my 33ft yacht which is permanently moored in the lane cove river, and was antifouled 8 months ago. We take the boat out sailing every week but there is a large layer of slime.


I love healing the boat but get embarrassed by my dirty bottom!


It has come time to remove the build up of antifouls and start again, so I could change the paint and or the approach!

What approach would you advise?

What type of antifoul (hard or soft) works best?

Would in water cleaning work and how ofter would I need to get divers in?

I would suggest ablative antifouling. Which particular brand really depends. I like Altec No5 and Jotun. Have used Hempel and found it hopeless but in a recent post here someone really liked it! I have several tins of International Micron to keep me going for a few years I picked up cheap from a closing down sale. I have used that years ago and it was ok. Success is really dependent on application, particularly thickness. The slime build up can happen to any antifoul after a short period if the water conditions are right. Light rub down with a soft broom or a sponge will get rid of it and activate fresh biocides but shorten the period to a recoat. I would generally recommend the Altec product as a good all rounder.

Different brands of antifoul seem to work better in different bays have a talk to others moored near you

Many of us have that problem. Scraping the boat by a diver can technically be OK if they remove only the growth and not any paint but in practice the paint comes off too (EPA fine) and while you get a short term clean bottom because lots of the paint goes the growth comes back much quicker.

If you search through this forum there's a really long discussion somewhere about anti-fouling paints, you might pick up some ideas there.

From my experience different paint works better in different waterways, more coats are better than one and make sure whoever does your boat doesnt put the boat back in the water before the paint dries.

Has anyone here tried that copper coat? My dad copper coated his Lotus 950 in Auckland and swears by it.

It would be wise to do it yourself if you could.
My last antifoul was done by an otherwise reputable and expensive shipyard. The work was done but the quality control did not detect the apprentices slack job on the keel's edges, which is now almost bare of antifoul while the rest is still 7 out of 10.

Balmain Marina is one of those places one can work on his boat.

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AshleyM said..
Has anyone here tried that copper coat? My dad copper coated his Lotus 950 in Auckland and swears by it.

Jode 5 has used copper coat I can remember him saying that it didn't work up on northern QLD I was thinking of it but its to expensive for a gamble. lus after reading bote coats copper anti foul which they suggested it would work for around five years and Copper coat saying there's would still be working least 10 years plus
Then thinking of the green slime which either product wont stop what's the point your boat still need to be n the hard because after you remove the green slime you still have to scrub the copper coat so it will work again.
I'm not sure when don'ts some company in Sweden got back to me in an email and said then new anti foul maybe be on the market in Australia in a couple of years .
It been developed for shipping in EU and it will mean a lot of other anti fouls will be banned
Interesting read below
I put a thread up a few months ago

selektope.com/

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sirgallivant said...
It would be wise to do it yourself if you could.
My last antifoul was done by an otherwise reputable and expensive shipyard. The work was done but the quality control did not detect the apprentices slack job on the keel's edges, which is now almost bare of antifoul while the rest is still 7 out of 10.

Balmain Marina is one of those places one can work on his boat.

Just don't trust him to do a survey ??

When I first did our boat, we got some rubbish stuff. I then asked around the bay who had what and what worked best. No issues after that.