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SF Bay - how long do you get out of Pettit Trinidad SR?
I'm wondering when I'll be hauling next - the bottom was done in Jan 2012 and seems to be in good condition right now. I had 2 coats of Pettit Trinidad SR put on.
Practical sailor did a longevity study that was published a couple months back. Most of the paints started loosing effectiveness after 2 years. I haul out and do mine every 3.
Jim
I think a lot depends on how often you clean your bottom, and how aggressively.
With two coats my bottom lasted around 30 months (South Bay)---I stretched it to 34, but the last couple of cleans were not that effective. Now it is repainted, I am initially using a hand towel to clean it - I'll move to something more abrasive later!
BTW, brace yourself for sticker shock when you do repaint - my recent job was way more expensive than my previous one. Like almost 50% more! Damn I wish my salary had gone up that much in 3 years.....
Mark, we're in Grand Marina in Alameda. I've gotten anywhere from 2 to 5 years on a coat and a half. When I broke my leg skiing in 2009, most everything got delayed, as you can imagine. My quarterly diver still said the paint was good in year four, went to poor in year five. Other times it went to poor in 2 to 3 years.
If you have a diver, he'll tell you the condition.
Don't necessarily think it's always gotta be 2 years.
Forget what Practical Sailor or anyone else says, because what any paint does is pretty much "area" specific. Sausalito will be different than the Estuary. If you go up the Delta often, you'll get different performance. If you use your boat a lot, you'll get different performance.
OK, I'm curious. How do you apply a coat and a half?
I'm also curious about the reports of folks cleaning the bottom of their boats. I have never done that, harboring the belief that the paint is ablative and cleaning it shortens the life. Whenever I have sort of casually rubbed the paint I get a cloud of color in the water which strengthens the belief. Are the paints that get cleaned non-ablative? Or am I missing something more fundamental?
I had my bottom painted with one coat of that paint, in blue (I recall that this matters.) 34 months ago. I've never had the bottom cleaned. When I hauled last week, there was a thin coating of green-brown growth, but it didn't look that bad; I suspect with cleaning it would have had some more time on it, but I'm not sure about another whole summer. (It seems that summer is when everything starts to grow.)
So I'd say 2-3 summers is about right, based on my one data point. I have no idea how much variance there is in this.
I keep the boat in Redwood City.
One thing that's pretty interesting is that the blisters on the bottom weren't nearly as bad as they were the last time I hauled. They were actually only slightly noticeable, and it's possible that they even sort of "dried up" a little. The last time I hauled, I had just bought the boat, and the bottom was in really bad shape; it may have been in the water for ten years. There was so much stuff on the bottom. I'm not sure if this could have been related to the blisters in some way.
We had our boat in Sausalito for 10 years. IIRC we used 2 coats of blue Petit Trinidad about every 2 years. Although we didn't race, speed was a concern as we used to make the long run outside to Duxburry every week during salmon season.
Around the beginning of the 2nd year we would start to get some growth around and just below the water line, which we could remove with a long handle brush. If you are in the South Bay the water may be warmer than in Sausalito?
With two coats of Trinidad, three at the waterline and leading/trailing edges and gently cleaned every two months, I guarantee you will get 3+ years of good service. The product is not designed to be effective for significantly longer and claims to that effect should be viewed with skepticism.
I reliably get three years with Petit Trinidad. Four is pushing and five years … Well let’s just say Matt is looking for a larger check. We went with red this last time because blue has been so overdone and red just looks too damn good.
Both hard paints and ablatives need to be cleaned regularly, in regions where fouling is an issue. Yes, ablative paints are subject to some paint loss during in-water cleaning activities, but by using Best Management Practices, your diver will not remove an undue amount of paint and it will last as long as it should, presuming you applied it following the manufacture's recommendations.
I think when people refer to a coat and a half, the half is an extra coat applied to leading edges of the keel and other high-wear spots. So most of the hull gets one coat, high-wear areas 2.
We are referring to hard bottom paints, non ablative, which is what I have.
I think when people refer to a coat and a half, the half is an extra coat applied to leading edges of the keel and other high-wear spots. So most of the hull gets one coat, high-wear areas 2.
We are referring to hard bottom paints, non ablative, which is what I have.
Matt, don't you remember your note saying get some new paint or I'm going to have to charge you extra? You were aboslutely right of course and when we hauled last December, it was a little embarrasing. That was one of our reasons on switching colors so we will be able to tell when the paint is starting to get a little thin.
Yes I do but maybe I'm not following you. I'd would much rather clean paint in good condition at the usual rate than old, difficult-to-clean, biocide-depleted paint at a higher price. I think any hull cleaner would tell you the same.
I got 6 years out of 2.5 coats of Interlux Ultra; when the boat was hauled the paint still looked good it pressure washed off the slime and there was no hard growth. Diver said it was becoming stubborn to scrub clean; but a different diver said the same thing at 2.5 years so I guess it depends on who is doing the diving too.
My boat is at Marina Bay in Richmond; lots of growth on the dock floats and pilings, but not as severe barnacle growth as in SF.
Right. Everybody else in the world hauls for paint every 2-3 years but you somehow magically get 200%-300% more life out of a mediocre product in the Bay Area. How does that happen, I wonder?
I don't have my boat scrubbed every month or two. The paint is 65% copper and it's a hard anti-fouling. How is this inferior to Trinidad SR? The bottom paint does release when wiped lightly so it refreshes on the surface when the bottom is cleaned. I don't mind if there is slime so I only have the bottom cleaned every 4-6 months. Works for me.
Many boat owners don't have their bottoms cleaned every month or two, and they don't get 6 years from their paint. The reason is that the products are simply not designed to provide anti fouling for that long. After two or three years, enough biocide has been released that the paint becomes essentially ineffective. This is true whether the boat has been cleaned twice during that period, or eighteen times or not at all.
In my experience, Ultra just doesn't perform as well or as long as Trinidad and I speak as a guy who is in the water every day, cleaning both of those products. They may have similar copper content, but after six or nine months, I can tell one from another quite easily, based strictly on how well each respective paint is doing its job.
A boat in the Bay Area that is being cleaned only twice a year is not being "wiped lightly", especially not when the bottom paint is six years old. But if this maintenance regimen works for you and you are happy with the performance of the boat between hull cleanings- hey, that's great.
I think you misunderstand my comment about being wiped lightly. If I put my hand in the water and wipe the slime off it comes off easily and then blue paint begins to release. The diver said the paint was doing fine until the last few months before I had the boat hauled. When it hauled out it was easy to see that the diver needed to scrub it pretty heavily to get the growth off; don't know if it was hard growth or just stubborn slime. The prop was heavily fouled with barnacles where the paint protection had worn away. There was not any soft growth like tunicates or anything hard like barnacles or mussels on it so I assume the paint was still doing it's job to a decent extent.
I have Ultra on my hull again; it's been 1 year and 5 months. Honestly I did not expect it to last as long as it did. Maybe there just is not very much current where my boat is berthed, so the copper is leaching out more slowly.
That's not how hard paints work. In a paint like Ultra, the biocide leaches out at a set rate independent of fast or how slowly water moves past the hull. Current or water temperature or any other environmental factor is going to have a negligible effect on leach rate.
OK; you were asking for an explanation on how my bottom paint lasted 6 years. I offered a possible reason. For WHATEVER reason it lasted 6 years. I don't know why, it just did. As I said before it lasted much longer than I expected it to; but it did last longer than it -should- have so I'm sticking with what works for me. If you want to see pictures of what it looked like when hauled I'll put some up.
Maybe you have a different definition of what "lasting" means regarding anti fouling paint. So there's still paint on the hull. Doesn't mean there's biocide left in the paint. And if there isn't biocide left in the paint, the paint isn't going to do its job. Anti fouling paint that has depleted its biocide hasn't "lasted", regardless of what the bottom looks like after a nice pressure washing.
That picture was taken before pressure washing. It was about 3 months after the bottom was cleaned. There is a bit of hard growth on the lower edge of the keel but that's why the diver said it was getting close to being time for a haulout. After it was washed it was pretty much clean aside from the little bit of hard growth at the lower edge of the keel. As I said before; I'm not really concerned about how much slime growth there is on it; most all bottom paints will allow slime growth despite the additives that claim to prevent it.
3 months of fouling on a 5 1/2 year old bottom and there is almost no discernable growth? Look at the running gear- clean as a whistle. The waterline? Spotless. Sorry and I absolutely mean no offense, but I ain't buying it. It doesn't add up. If that's what the boat looked like fresh out of the water after not having having been touched for three months, why bother painting it?
I suspect that you are mistaken about the boat not having been pressure washed in this pic.
I don't maintain that you aren't telling what you believe to be the truth, I'm simply saying that what you are claiming is outside my personal experience. The pic you posted is of a boat that essentially doesn't even need to be cleaned. A 5+ year old bottom in the central Bay that hasn't been touched in three months that is virtually spotless? Again, completely outside my experience.
I'll ask again- if the paint is working that well, why repaint?
So knowing that it's 5.5 years old; knowing that the bottom paint is getting difficult to scrub per what the diver is saying, and the boat already in the slings with an agreement that the yard that they will sand and paint the hull, I'm supposed to say 'oops, put me back in the water' instead? In addition I had already bought new depth/speed instruments, dripless shaft seal, drivesaver, and feathering prop. Can't install them without going on the hard...
I have Trinidad on my boat (in Southern CA; King Harbor/Redondo Beach). It's been almost exactly four years, but it's just about due. I'll probably haul it and repaint the bottom this Fall.
Well thanks for the input everyone, this has been a far more interesting discussion than I anticipated when I started the thread
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