To Bottompaint or not to Bottompaint..

[leland515]

I am planning on leaving my San Juan 21 Mk II in the water for the summer, but have no access to a hoist, or any other way to access all parts of the bottom easily..
What will be the consequences if I leave it in this brackish water for a few months, sailing it nearly every day?

[tager]

Barnacles and mussels and weeds all stuck tenaciously to your hull. I would advise one of two strategies if you are really cheap. Careen your boat and paint the bottom; this would be cheap, effective, and traditional, but probably illegal. Or simply dive on the boat weekly to scrub off all of the growth. This is pretty legal. In Washington it is illegal only if you have a particular type of paint. Dunno about Muzzsippay. Really your boat won't sink or disintegrate if there are a few barnacles on the bottom. Mine had a few barnacles and they came off rather easily.

[Michael K]

The difference is a few barnacles and a bit of slime with paint or a shag carpet without. Also, the difference could be whether or not your centerboard will move up and down. Do you like to sail? Upwind?

[CalebD]

Is there old bottom paint on the hull now?
Is it on a trailer at the moment? If so you can put some paint on the surfaces that are exposed.
As tager suggested you will likely get some slime, barnacles and marine growth as the water warms up. If you use the boat more often it should minimize the growth but not stop it completely. It should not be too hard to give your 21' boat's bottom a bi-weekly (or some frequency) quick underwater rub down.
I have never careened my boat so I can't comment on how well it would work. Sounds like a PITA to me though as you can only really do one complete half of the boat at a time as one half is supporting the boat at any given time.
I hope you have access to a power sprayer. These work very well when the boat comes out of the water with live growth on the bottom. Once some of this stuff dries it can be very stubborn to get off.
Your mileage will vary.

[hardalee22]

look for a boat club, working class yacht club or anywhere else with a lift. even if you have to make a trip out of it you'll be happy you got some paint on the bottom. if you wait until the clubs get their boats in the water you might find a place that will haul you for a day for 150 bucks or so. good luck

[mdbee]

Paint it. As an experiment, I put my unpainted boat in a slip In Oct for almost 4 weeks. Since the bay water was cooler than in summer, I thought that maybe I wouldn't have much growth. All that I did was to put a thick layer of wax on.

I was wrong, admittedly, I wasn't able to sail much, only about 5 times but when I pulled it out, there was a lot of growth, including the beginnings of barnacles. I can't imagine what you would have over 3 months in warmer water.

[MARC2012]

Beware of the polyester worms.marc

[zz4gta]

Definitely put paint on it. I made that mistake once. The critters are so hard to get off it tears up the gel coat and then you need to redo the entire bottom. Just get a gallon of bottom paint and roll it on. Barrow a trailer, pay for haul out, but don't let the boat sit in the water w/o paint on it. The summer is when the growth is the absolute worst.

[Fstbttms]

Originally Posted by leland515

I am planning on leaving my San Juan 21 Mk II in the water for the summer, but have no access to a hoist, or any other way to access all parts of the bottom easily..
What will be the consequences if I leave it in this brackish water for a few months, sailing it nearly every day?

You will absolutely regret leaving an unpainted boat in the water.

[CaptKermie]

So how long is summer in your neck of the woods? Up here in the PNW it is 3-4 months.
For several seasons I did just what you want to do, I kept it in a transient slip for the summer without bottom paint and hauled it every six weeks to clean the bottom off. (I have a trailerable) I used this really good wax that helps repell growth but it did not help retard the growth, only helped making it easier to get off. It was a big, dirty, ugly, sweaty job getting that crap off and then re-waxing a 26' hull and I was in my 50's. You are younger, you may easily tough it out but you will not like it. I endured this school of hard knocks for five seasons, stubbornly refusing to paint my pristine shiny hull. Well last year (spring 2009) I finally caved in and did the epoxy barrier coat then the antifouling bottom paint, took me a week. I am, happy now, I leave my boat in the slip year around now ( I gave up transient and bought annual)and haul only once a year to clean and wax the top sides, inside and add an extra coat of bottom paint. I do it in my driveway becuase I can. The best thing I ever did was bottom paint, I just don't know why it took me so long to figure out that I should. Don't learn the hard way like I did!