Bottom Seal & Paint

[Big dave]

I would like to get some pro's & con's or at least some input.
Raven Dancer will be staying in the water mostly salt or brackish for up to 5 months at a time. I live in the NW.
One person will tell me don't worry about it the next one will say you need the bottom sealed & painted.
Raven Dancer is going in the shop next week for some repairs so I need to make up my mind, so here is where the help of the pub come's in should I have it done or not....................The pub makes the call.
Thank you to all who respond.
Big Dave.
Raven Dancer. [/b]

[mikeporterinmd]

I'd suggest doing what most of the folks in your marina do. The
variables are really large. How much water movement do you
get? Temp? Etc.

I like the ablative paints, having once stripped a 30' hull to glass because
the regular bottom paint was building up and starting to flake off.

Mike

[westward]

Greetings! I'll share what I did and have been pleased with. I had my vendor (CSR Marine, Seattle) establish the water line, lightly sand the hull below the water line (there was no wax on the hull bottom), apply 6 coats of epoxy barrier coat, and finally apply 2 coats of bottom paint (Micron CSC if I remember right). They used a white colored aluminum compatible bottom paint in the area immediately around the motor mount. Like I said, I've been pleased with the durability and results. The first application lasted 2 years, and since then I've had the boat hauled, pressure washed and re-coated annually by other vendors. No flaking or bare spots so far. One challenge I encountered was rain filling the cockpit during the wet months. I would recomment a sunbrella cockpit cover to keep most of the rain out. The bilge pump doesn't remove all of the water, and doesn't work at all if the batteries are dead. All in all your maintenance is much easier if you keep the boat out of the water for at least a few months each year. Best of luck, Mike.

[oldgrowth]

Big Dave – If it was me, I would not bottom paint my boat and plan on doing a good cleaning every time I took the boat out, to start with. Once you bottom paint you are unusually stuck with it. Hard to go the other way. If you find it is too much trouble cleaning the bottom then you can always bottom paint it.

[drjohn71a]

Big Dave - If you are not certain, you could use one of the bottomwax products discussed earlier on this site. My experience with them is that they work well in that they are easy to clean off with hot power spray, but they accumulate discoloration in the wax itself over the season. You don't have to buff some of them - the ones like a gel that you just spread on. I used them on a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico and a cruiser up here in Kansas for years and the hulls looked like new when I sold.

On some of my boats, I have used the ablative bottom paints, like Micron CSC with good results too. You can extend the time between recoating an ablative paint by letting the hull dry after hauling the boat, then lightly brushing, or 'brooming', the debris off. Powerwashing an ablative paint loses alot of the surface. Of couse, my experience has been in warmer waters, so moss and algae and Zebra Mussels were the problem.

John

[lloyds]

I would tend to lean toward what westward said. I kept my sailboats in puget sound for years and every other year hauled and replaced the ablative paint. Micron is a good one. I never barrier coated because my hull was built by Tillotson-Pearson and they already used a vinylester resin. I have never had a power boat that I kept in saltwater for long periods of time so I am unfamiliar with how much "stuff" actually falls off the first time you put it on plane after sitting for a week or two. But I would guess you will end up hauling it out every month or so and wiping it down to get the stuff off.