Hi guys

Been a while but I still follow most discussions here.

I last painted the bum in Brisbane in June 2018 using International "hard" antifoul. Its worked great but I can see now its affects are wearing out. The good thing with Hard paint is that I can scrub it as often as I like. When I next leave the boat it will be for 5 months and there'll be no-one to scrub her during that time. My question is, would barnacles that attached during that time actually do damage to the glass under the paint/gelcoat? Do their roots get in that deep?
There is a lack of options to haul out in Indonesia and I'm trying to put it off till I get to Langkawi sometime next year.

Here's my latest video too

They wont damage the boat but will take a lot of work to get off. If the normal cone shaped barneys grow on it they can be scraped off with a sharp scraper, but usually some will leave a little circle of "glue" which is very stubborn.
Some of the glue may need grinding with a flap disc and this could go through to gelcoat if not carefully done.
Its a bit of a luckydip as to what will grow on it. Ask some locals where you plan to leave it. Some types of growth are easier to get off than others.

Good work Dex !!

Hi dex
Enjoying your perspective on real life sailing travels ,just a question have you thought about applying for the next ocean race as on board reporter ?

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spiggie said..
Hi dex
Enjoying your perspective on real life sailing travels ,just a question have you thought about applying for the next ocean race as on board reporter ?

Thanks Spiggie
Yeah I did think about it last year but had sort of forgotten about it until now. I'll have to look into it now. No idea how it works now that Volvo are not running the show. Thanks for the reminder.

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stray said..
They wont damage the boat but will take a lot of work to get off. If the normal cone shaped barneys grow on it they can be scraped off with a sharp scraper, but usually some will leave a little circle of "glue" which is very stubborn.
Some of the glue may need grinding with a flap disc and this could go through to gelcoat if not carefully done.
Its a bit of a luckydip as to what will grow on it. Ask some locals where you plan to leave it. Some types of growth are easier to get off than others.

Ok cool, yeah I scrape the boat every month of so now and the hard growth comes off pretty easy.

I left my cat for almost a year in a marina in Tassie that had fresh and salt water flowing through. There was almost no growth on her when we got back to her as the fresh after rains would kill the barnacles. Maybe you could try to be somewhere similar.

Alternatively, you could try careening on a nice sandy and calm beach. A Sayer looks like a strong boat and you could check with John about putting some mats or tyres under the bilge up a calm estuary and then slap on some cheap soft antifoul for when she is sitting. Two tides to get both sides done.

Careening used to be done more often in Australia, lots of multis used to, but people have been fined for dropping a speck or two of paint so they don't as often now. Of course you can put drop sheets down to pick all splashes so that should not be a problem. Also, if you are sanding her in the water, she should be clean as a whistle when you careen her.

Only if you have the tides and friendly locals though.

As a greenie, I do get a bit cranky about the EPA getting onto careening. In Newcastle harbour, the slipway I use was using was gone over by the EPA and we had to be ultra careful about washing and sanding. Meanwhile, three times a day, the dredge barge was pulling up 100 year old spoil from in front of the old BHP site which is loaded with super nasty toxins and dumping it about 1-2 miles offshore. If I was into conspiracies I would have fertile grounds there but I can see that antifoul is a convenient and very easy first option rather than taking on coal loader multinationals, plastic bag manufacturers, microplastics in clothing, tyre particles, exhaust run off, agriculture run off or many others. Little guys don't fight with big pockets.
cheers

Phil

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Kankama said..

Careening used to be done more often in Australia, lots of multis used to, but people have been fined for dropping a speck or two of paint so they don't as often now. Of course you can put drop sheets down to pick all splashes so that should not be a problem. Also, if you are sanding her in the water, she should be clean as a whistle when you careen her.

cheers Phil

Further to that, what does a drop of paint do that the antifoul is not already doing to the water?

I guess that in not so long a time all antifouling paint will need to be so benign that no barnacles will be harmed.