AQntifouling Addatives

After 40 years in the marine coatings industry I thought I had heard all the dumb ideas to make antifouling perform better from Jayes Fluid, Round Up, Tordon and other farm poisons my response was always if these things worked the coating manufacturers woud use them instead of the expensive components used.
Here in The Bay Of Islands New Zealand we have a major barnacle issue especially in the Opua Marina Complex.
I hauled out today to be greeted by the usual barnacle farm under my boat while the guy who hauled immediately after me was fine after 9 months changed his anodes had a pressure wash and got get again.
As the guy seemed a straight up type of guy I asked him whos antifouling he was using his response was that it is not the antifouling that is dealing to the barnacles it was the 2kg per 10 litres of chilli powder he adds to it.
Having seen the results it either works or he is telling me "Porkie Pies"
Any comment out there on this

One course is to try the chili powder addition yourself. That`s after you establish that his a/f product (apart from the chili addition)and his fouling exposure, and period between lifts, are similar to yours(he seems to have evaded disclosing his a/f product). Otherwise you won`t be comparing apples with apples.

Ironically we built some glass bottom boats in Bermuda and our solution to keeping the glass clean wash to slather a mixture of Vaseline and hot pepper dust. It worked well and once in sea water the Vaseline / mixture became transparent.

Phil23 said:

After 40 years in the marine coatings industry I thought I had heard all the dumb ideas to make antifouling perform better from Jayes Fluid, Round Up, Tordon and other farm poisons my response was always if these things worked the coating manufacturers woud use them instead of the expensive components used.
Here in The Bay Of Islands New Zealand we have a major barnacle issue especially in the Opua Marina Complex.
I hauled out today to be greeted by the usual barnacle farm under my boat while the guy who hauled immediately after me was fine after 9 months changed his anodes had a pressure wash and got get again.
As the guy seemed a straight up type of guy I asked him whos antifouling he was using his response was that it is not the antifouling that is dealing to the barnacles it was the 2kg per 10 litres of chilli powder he adds to it.
Having seen the results it either works or he is telling me "Porkie Pies"
Any comment out there on this

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I've heard of this but never seen it in person. I've also heard that coating the bottom with a graphite paint works very well and doesn't require the yearly renewal some ablative paints require.



Ez-Slide is what was recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/Ez-Slide-Gra...a2ab5ccd3153bfb41174056353a48f&language=en_US

Vasoline sounds good, does not wash off with water, barnacles wont like it. I have thought of using waterproof marine grease too. Vasoline I think would be far cheaper to try.

Do you think a boat would slip out of the slings?

If your boat left a continuous oily sheen around it...you might have some explaining to do.

If chili powder worked, it would be in our bottom paint already. It’s already been tried by the paint manufacturers. They have tried everything to beat the copper elimination mandate that was going into affect next year but has been indefinitely delayed due to the lack of success finding an alternative.

psneeld said:

If your boat left a continuous oily sheen around it...you might have some explaining to do.

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I dont think Vaseline gives off loose oils. The cartridge of marine grease I have is a limey green color, it is very waterproof. I ought to do a test in a tub., or slick up a pole and put it in the slip water and see what happen over time. Some greases can release oil and are not water proof.

The problem with Vasoline is suppose it doesn’t work and you decide to go back to normal bottom paint. How would you remove from every nook, cranny and pore in order to get adhesion for the bottom paint?

Mikala said:

The problem with Vasoline is suppose it doesn’t work and you decide to go back to normal bottom paint. How would you remove from every nook, cranny and pore in order to get adhesion for the bottom paint?

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Soda blasting.

ben2go said:

Soda blasting.

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Got it. Pretty expensive test, though. Probably best to find a dock mate willing to try it first.

I think chili powder does help. I’ve heard it talked about in Alaska. Some say it works. AF coatings is one of the things I haven’t modified.

But my take on it and all other additives in AF is that it will do damage (almost always) by degrading the “coating” in someway ... probably mostly in it’s adhesion capabilities. So if you put this and that in your AF it may not be there to do it’s job in 6 months. Kinda like putting additives in lube oil. There’s less oil in the oil to lubricate the engine parts. But the additives in oil (15 or so) do more good than harm .... usually. Is chili powder expensive?

I watched shows of wrecks in salt water where old shoes didn’t have any marine growth on them. So maybe adding tannic acid to the paint will work.

Oh good grief! This stupid idea has been around for fifty years that I know of. I first heard it in the late sixties.

The other stupid idea that’s been around forever is adding tetracycline to the paint. It does nothing.

As for grease, I put Never Seez on my bare bronze prop to see what would happen. It washed off the first time I ran the boat. Of course the hull moves a lot slower than the prop but I suspect it wouldn’t last long enough to be of use.

HopCar said:

Oh good grief! This stupid idea has been around for fifty years that I know of. I first heard it in the late sixties.

The other stupid idea that’s been around forever is adding tetracycline to the paint. It does nothing.

As for grease, I put Never Seez on my bare bronze prop to see what would happen. It washed off the first time I ran the boat. Of course the hull moves a lot slower than the prop but I suspect it wouldn’t last long enough to be of use.

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Never seize is a loose bound oily mix with aluminum powder. I cant imagine it would stay on. Hydrocarbons are slowly metabolized by bacteria, anything greasy on the hull eventually dissipates. The less water soluble the grease, the longer it will last.

HopCar said:

Oh good grief! This stupid idea has been around for fifty years that I know of. I first heard it in the late sixties.

The other stupid idea that’s been around forever is adding tetracycline to the paint. It does nothing.

As for grease, I put Never Seez on my bare bronze prop to see what would happen. It washed off the first time I ran the boat. Of course the hull moves a lot slower than the prop but I suspect it wouldn’t last long enough to be of use.

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Gees, no need to get excited. Not all here have your broad knowledge and experience.

No.... but a 2 minute google search would bring almost anyone up to speed on the topic.

psneeld said:

No.... but a 2 minute google search would bring almost anyone up to speed on the topic.

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Why did you not make your Google suggestion after post #1 in this thread rather than wait until post #17 for your enlightment?

Please.....

psneeld said:

Please.....

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OH, now you pretend to be modest

sdowney717 said:

Never seize is a loose bound oily mix with aluminum powder. I cant imagine it would stay on. Hydrocarbons are slowly metabolized by bacteria, anything greasy on the hull eventually dissipates. The less water soluble the grease, the longer it will last.

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I got the idea to try it when I was racing hydroplanes. I had a high carbon steel prop that would rust in about a day. I had to sand it clean before each race day. One day after a race I grabbed a can of Never Seez from my tool box and coated the prop. At the next race I didn’t have to sand the prop. After the race there was a very thin layer of Never Seez left. Other drivers asked me why I put it on my prop. I told them I’d picked up 50 rpm by doing it.

HopCar said:

Oh good grief! This stupid idea has been around for fifty years that I know of. I first heard it in the late sixties.

The other stupid idea that’s been around forever is adding tetracycline to the paint. It does nothing.

As for grease, I put Never Seez on my bare bronze prop to see what would happen. It washed off the first time I ran the boat. Of course the hull moves a lot slower than the prop but I suspect it wouldn’t last long enough to be of use.

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Parks,
I use ArmorAll on my prop and it works well enough that I have no interest in expensive Propspeed.
Wouldn’t dream of putting it on my hull for fear the next coat of AF would wash off in 10 minutes running time.

Nomad Willy said:

Parks,
I use ArmorAll on my prop and it works well enough that I have no interest in expensive Propspeed.
Wouldn’t dream of putting it on my hull for fear the next coat of AF would wash off in 10 minutes running time.

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Your boat is "in the water" slipped isnt it? Did you have to haul it to apply the ArmorAll

Mikala said:

The problem with Vasoline is suppose it doesn’t work and you decide to go back to normal bottom paint. How would you remove from every nook, cranny and pore in order to get adhesion for the bottom paint?

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Been there, done that.

In 1990 I transported my wooden GB42 over the deserts from San Diego to Galveston and thence via 560 miles of the GIWW to Panama City, FL. In preparing for the trip which included ten days on the trailer going through arid lands, I first applied a coat of bottom paint and then smeared a coat of Vaseline over the entire underwater body of the boat to prevent the bottom drying out while on land. When I arrived in Panama City there was still a coating of Vaseline on the flat underwater transom but none elsewhere. By the time another haulout was due, there was no Vaseline anywhere.

An even stickier and non-petroleum product I have smeared on running gear underwater using a rag is lanolin which you can buy online. Great for a boat which may not immediately see a lot of use after hauling.

Since my original post I have been and still am on the hardstand and seeing vessels hauled, blasted in preparation for bottom work.
I would have been one of the most skeptical people when it came to antifouling additives however as of yesterday I have witnessed 4 vessels who have used the Chilli Powder thing either washed and returned to the water or cradled without washing to be returned after anodes and other quick jobs. Apart from under keel areas there has been NO BARNACLES just the normal green muddy type slime.
On querying owners of these and a couple of other users these vessels had been in the water from between 10 and 15 months!!
3 of the antifouling products were ablative and one was hard on a yacht.
I can only report what I have seen and in a very high barnacle growth area like the Opua Marina I have to try it.

I omitted to say I have hung a 500mm x 500mm plate in the water in my marina berth coated with Chilli and antifouling to monitor progress of growth

For a number of years I added cayenne pepper in large amounts to my Triple XXX bottom paint on my PNW full displacement commercial troller. I bought the cayenne at a bulk food store. A few other commercial fishermen did too. I was happy with the missing growth but it did seem to thicken and harden the Triple XXX causing it to slab off after a number of applications.

I now own a semi-displacement and no longer use this type of bottom paint.

Good....better document the beast out of it because the vast majority of "real testing" by third party testers have said no it doesn't work.

You have a couple choices. Keep asking for advice and get mostly negative responses, or just do what you want and laugh for years if you prove yourself right.

cayenne/lanolin/mould inhibitor

Hi All, my first post if it works! Waimana is a 55 ft converted ‘45 fishing trawler,
kauri carvel planking over dble hardwood frames with 6L3B power.
Owned for 10 years just finished 5th haul out and anti foul and still experimenting,
the following being comment on my (perhaps) foolhardy experimenting so far..

first: Altex ablative sea barrier 3000 Sprayed by yard, c 30 litres
effect, after 1 year solid growth on sunlit side of wharf tie up and little on
wharf side location Tauranga, N.Z.

2nd: same paint, same quantity, roller app with 2 kg cayenne in last 2 coats
effect, no sloughing, moderate growth, muscle/ oyster encrustation after 2
yrs in Opua’s fertile waters, hard to compare for that reason.

3rd: same paint, same quantity, 3 coats rolled and some fool told me about
lanolin: sourced from aussie, had to be heated to apply 1 thick coat by
spatula... wifey will never repeat that experience due to the pong, yet she
scraped virtually the whole boat back to bare timber! The hoped for result
was once worn off, the antifoul would take over and last longer.
The effect: a full grown muscle farm within 6 months and no leaks!
fortunately the muscles were easy to scrape off, just like shearing a sheep!
Nil antifoul effect... but was 30 months before the black first coat appeared
under the 2 red top coats. No problem applying next (4th) afoul coat

4th: same make, qauntity and app, no additives.
effect: 18 mths before haul out, barnacles galore, black showing through
in upper hull area, leaking butt joint brought haul out forward.

5th: same make quantity and app, heard of anti mould additive, for house
paint that was reputed to decrease barnacles in opua, 2 bottles cost $40.
effect: don’t know yet, but hell of a lot easier than pepper or lanolin and
cheaper. Will keep you posted if we still own her in 2-3 years!
Unfortunately she will probably be for sale by then, apologies for long wind,
it’s a big subject! Cheers, Brian

Welcome aboard Brian.