I know that much has been written about bottom paints, but mixed responses didn't give me confidence about what to do. Sailing area - Chesapeake Bay and tributaries. Our sailboat has a hard red paint covered by two coats of single season Interlux Act blue ablative paint (one coat applied in...

Hi all, I have a new to me Heritage W.I. Ketch. Previous owner tells me the bottom was repainted in Key West with Inter protect 2000e. He said that the yard waited for the first coat to dry and it was supposed to be repainted when the base coat was tacky and the paint washed off on the way back...

Sorry if this has been answered many times. Did a search for a variety of searches but couldn't find a specific answer. Just purchased a small 20' trailerable swingkeel sailboat that's about 30 years old. The fiberglass hull looks in decent shape with only a few spots needing some fairing. The...

From my boats on the upper Chesapeake (Annapolis area), one our Pearson 35 and the other a small Sea Ray powerboat, it seemed to me that the barnacles this season were worse than last year - especially the prop and through-hulls. My raw water intake hole was pretty grown over on the P35. Is...

My '72 Venture 21 has a 400-lb swing keel (according to VENTURE 21 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com) that needs to be removed, cleaned up and painted. The boat should be put on blocks tomorrow so I can start working on it. Any advice? It's held in place by a single...

I've been reciting the iron keel on my Cheoy Lee Clipper 42. The old coating mostly fell off on haul out. I've stripped it to bare metal, re-coated with POR-15, and filled and faired with thickened epoxy. I plan to add at least one layer of fiberglass and then more epoxy with barrier coat...

Having goten tired of scraping goo off my Dyer dinghy's bottom, and realizing that metallic copper inhibits marine growth, I made my own bottom paint for less than $30. (Not as simple as just buying some bottom paint, but a lot more fun and interesting). Since putting copper powder INTO a...

Hi - I'm in the process of selecting a bottom paint for my San Juan 21. The barrier coat is being applied and I was thinking of VC-17 as the bottom paint. The guy who is doing the work has recommended Interlux Micron Extra with Biolux. Any thoughts on these two paints for a boat that'll be...

Hi, I have a trailored 21' pocket cruiser which is not likly to be moored more than a long weekend to a week at the most. I've read that copper-based bottom paint degrades on steady air exposure. Any thoughts on a good, durable bottom paint that will hold up to trailering and air exposure...