Botanical Gardens Or How fast is your boat at the moment.

[Boasun]

Of course you all realize that the amount of marine growth on the bottom makes a difference so It leads to the following:
Am curious on how often do you clean the wet side of your boat?
And of how it affects the speed of your vessel?
Please note the WAG scale on how I feel it would affect your boat.

Ultra clean bottom 6+ kts
Average clean bottom 5+ kts
grassy bottom 4+ kts
botanical gardens on the bottom 2+ kts if you are lucky

So how does your garden grow???



WAG = Wild Ass Guess

[zz4gta]

That's pretty acurate for my boat. I had roots attached to the bottom of the bay before I hauled and cleaned her. But then again, I didn't have any bottom paint at the time. Now the paints on her she's back up above 6kts and feels great. Sails a lot better, turns on a dime, points, heels less, everything. Makes a huge difference in a boat that light. During the season I plan to clean it once a month. I like going fast.

[NOLAsailing]

I clean it at least once a month with the Dri-Diver brush, quarterly in the water by either by hiring a diver or doing it myself, and by hiring a diver before any major regatta.

[tommays]

As soon as the water warms up enough to swim i a give it a light brushing once a week right into Oct

[CharlieCobra]

The V-21 will do 60 knots......, on the trailer. Right now it's so full of snow melt that it's popping a wheelie. I gotta fix that today. Oh Joy is clean but on stands. I usually don't let Oh Joy get past the slime stage and the Venture is dry sailed.

[sailortjk1]

Six Month season for us.
She gets a fresh coat of VC-17 every spring.
Only a tiny film of slime by the time next fall rolls around.
Than we do it all over again.

[Fstbttms]

I hear from clients all the time how much faster they are after a cleaning. Last week a guy with a Beneteau 331 e-mailed me to ask just how bad had his bottom been, because he felt so much faster when he sailed the boat a day or two after I cleaned it. I told him he just had the usual, fairly light slime, nothing extreme at all (bottom less than a year old, cleaned every two months).

A lot of people don't realize (or care) that it doesn't take much fouling at all to have a significant effect on boat speed.

[JohnRPollard]

Originally Posted by Fstbttms

A lot of people don't realize (or care) that it doesn't take much fouling at all to have a significant effect on boat speed.

I do!!

Under power or light air, the difference in boat speed for us is about 20%. Dirty bottom and fouled prop is 5-5.5 knots. Very Clean = 6-6.5 knts. All at the same engine RPM. Sailing in a stiff breeze we don't notice it at all, but in light air....

I think the effects are more exaggerated for boats like ours with comparatively large wetted surface area.

[zz4gta]

Originally Posted by sailortjk1

Only a tiny film of slime by the time next fall rolls around.

I envy you.

[bubb2]

I agree with all of the above.

My boat sat most of last summer. Early Oct. I took a trip of a few days just to get away and have time to myself. It 60 miles each way. I saw the fuzz"s at the water line. When I backed her out of the slip she felt heavy like I never felt her before. I got her under sail, as each hour went by I was picking up 1/10 th of knot. The bottom was polishing the growth off. On the way back i had pick up over a knot to knot and half just by getting the boat moving.

A bottom needs to move though the water to wash it's self clean.