silicon antifouling paint

Has anybody tried silicon antifouling paint?

Never heard of it.

Have heard of it. Don’t know really anything about it, but my concern is what if you want to return to a conventional bottom paint, how do you get rid of the silicone and will anything else stick to the hull then?

I read some reviews. Its suppose to last a long time. You can clean the hull with a soft cloth although maybe you have to clean it more often. Some marina's won't haul your boat out because its very slippery and your boat might slide out of the slings. It makes your boat faster. I suppose you could sand it off if you wanted to go back to normal antifouling.There a few companies that make it

Isn`t Prop Speed silicone? To redo it, the old stuff has to come off first.

I read about this but never used it as does not seem to fit with my boat. For what I know it is more intended for boat faster then mine where the flow of water is enough to keep the hull clean.

L

I read the brief description on the website it looks like it has no active ingredients, it appears to be just a slippery surface

Greetings,
Silicone? Ooohhh boy! I'll attempt to keep this brief...I have not read or seen the web site but Mr. 30 states "... just a slippery surface." and therein lies the rub.

Silicone IS a great material for specific applications, VERY, VERY few of which are marine related. As mentioned, if re-coat is required, removal of said silicone is required. In my 35 years of working with silicone materials removal is by FAR the most difficult part. Most solvents except Toluene don't work to remove bulk coating or even traces and traces will preclude ANY over coating. Forget about painting if silicone has come anywhere near your paint site.

One marine use for silicone is sticking stuff to glass. I used RTV to attach pull handles to 2 sliding windows in our saloon this past weekend. Probably the BEST material for THIS application in my experience.

The application process is very complex and therefore expensive. No thanks.

Whole lot of misconceptions about thus one it seems. In fact it maybe that every nay post has been wrong...

Technical Overview - Silicone Foul Release Bottom Paints
www.seacoat.com/wp.../SEA-SPEED-V-10-X-CLEAR-APPLICATION-GUIDE.pdf


I might just price this to do mine.

Wash entire hull with high-pressure water.
Sand blasting the entire hull and the running gear, one day. If primer not applied that same day, wash again.
2 coats of the primer, 2 days.
One application of the final coating.

vs

Trilux 2 (which is basically house paint, absolute crap with a high price tag), fails after one year but one trip with a diver makes recoating possible every 2 years. Actually, I just remembered that last summer I swam under her and scraped the mussels and barnacles off as well as a diver trip.

Wash with high pressure water.
Recoat with one coat of Trilux 2 (it makes me want to gag just saying the name! I hate being had!).

My yard requires full wrapping in order to sand blast, extra cost. I have an aluminum hull so not worried about missing a day after sandblasting.

I also don't live in California.

I would be all over it like peanut butter on toast if it was even in the ballpark of my current process. Its just a lot more prep and work than my annual inadequate process.

+1

One contractor I know uses paint stripper(not sure which one) to remove silicone from props before recoating. It`s to reduce loss of metal from the prop caused by cleaning with abrasives, or angle grinder mounted wire brush.

But what if it works.

"Some marina's won't haul your boat out because its very slippery and your boat might slide out of the slings."

Last week a local yard (in business since WW II - not new guys) placed a 35' or so sailboat on stands during moderate but gusty winds. The boat was coated with a silicon system. The boat was in the stands, slings removed, and it rolled to downwind, came out of the stands, and broke the mainmast off at the cabin top. They now have a no silicon policy.

strange marina if they cant block and chain stands to hold a boat...slippery ot not.

there have been "slippery" coatings around for decades.

It is probably something they have never come up against and didn’t realize the implications. Probably don’t want to pay for another learning experience.

Don't know the details, psneeld. Just saw the end product and heard the war story from an eye witness. It was interesting to me in that I had read hollow's comment about 2 hours previous.

Thread resurrection-

I have just learned about the Seacoat-brand products. It appears reasonable to work with and I like what THEY have to say about it. I am going to do some additional research. I still have AT LEAST another year before my bottom needs attention. Would be appealing to have a longer interval between bottom jobs, along with good performance. I doubt I will see any tangible performance increase as we are heavy and slow.

Has anyone in the PNW used this product or know of a yard that is using it?

Thanks in advance.