Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
 
Old 06-12-2008, 03:28 PM   #1
Senior Member
 
Chris Foster's Avatar
 
City: Anacortes, WA
Vessel Name: Thea
Vessel Model: 46 Grand Banks Classic
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 280
Routine service / inspection by a diver?

Back when I wuz a young 'un, we had a Tollycraft in San Diego.* With the warm, salty water, the bottom would grass up pretty quickly even with good quality sloughing bottom paint.* So we had a diver come out monthly to wipe the bottom down (with an old piece of carpet, I believe), check the zincs, etc.

So I'm curious what the "norm" is in the PNW.* The colder brackish water seems to slow down growth, but I'm starting to see some slime build up.* And I don't have a clue how the zincs look since last September when she was hauled.

During my two months sublet in Squalicum harbor, I remember that the marina rules prohibited divers wiping the bottom down - presumably to prevent copper sloughing off.* I haven't seen any such regulation at Anacortes (yet).

Thoughts?* Recommendations???

Thanks in advance...

chris
Chris Foster is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2008, 07:11 AM   #2
TF Site Team/Forum Founder
 
Baker's Avatar
 
City: League City, Tx
Vessel Name: Floatsome & Jetsome
Vessel Model: Meridian 411
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 7,332
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

San Diego water ....Warm???
Baker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2008, 08:45 AM   #3
Guru
 
Codger2's Avatar
 
City: San Diego
Vessel Name: Circuit Breaker
Vessel Model: 2021..22' Duffy Cuddy cabin
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 6,691
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

John:

Relaive to PNW water, we are "warm" in San Diego. Although "outside" of the bay you may see water at 70 degrees, the water at the slip can be in the high 70's and require a diver once a month. Once every 6 weeks in the winter.

Life's a real bitch living here.
Codger2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2008, 05:17 PM   #4
Guru
 
2bucks's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 698
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

Most marinas will restrict wiping down the bottom since the antifouling agents (copper, tin, etc) build up on the bottom of the bay over time. Apparently, if you dive you can see where the bottom is pretty void of sea life compared to other nearby areas in older marinas. Somewhere down the road the areas where this has happened will have to be "cleaned up". Just as the places where oil and other byproducts were dumped are now Superfund sites. I wouldn't want to be the marina owner when that regulation went into effect.

We see the same type of environmental regulation on boatyards now. For almost 20 years now the boatyards have to capture all the water from pressure washing bottoms and recycle the water. The sediment has to periodically be shoveled into drums and placed in a HazMat landfill. You've probably noticed that boatyards now require tarping around boats prior to bottom paint sanding so the toxicity doesn't spread.

A couple of things help reduce the growth. Regular use seems to keep the growth down. Dark tends to limit growth. Under cover is better than in the open and inside a boathouse with the curtain drawn seems to be the Gold Standard. Areas around the waterline do tend to be messy, so running the brush around that area when anchored out somewhere probably won't impact the bottom there as much as it would in your slip where the toxins would fall in the exact same place each time. Taking your diver out somewhere to wipe down the bottom every 6 months might work for this also if you find that your marina seems to be warm enough to grow more than normal.

For recoating the bottom paint I'm a proponent of waiting until it needs it. That is I have mine looked at every 6-8 months when the diver does the zincs. If it is just building some slime from not having been used enough, I use that as an excuse to go for a ride. (bottom paint is $200.00 a gallon, diesel is $4.50) When the diver reports seeing the next color down, then I know it's time to schedule a paint job. Sometimes it happens in the spring, sometimes in the fall. Yes, I alternate bottom paint color every 3rd time or so. I sometimes go 3 years between coats. Of course the disclaimer is I use sloughing paint on a slow (7 knot) boat. If you're on top of the water doing 30 knots with a hard paint your experience will vary.

I'm in Edmonds marina for the weekend and the water outside is 50.2 degrees right now. (tell me again how cold that 70 degree water is...... Our normal water temperatures in the Sound run between 50 and 55 degrees most of the time unless you are in a large shallow area that gets some solar heat.

Your zincs are a very individual item. Each boat has it's own amount of electrical leakage and who you moor next to can be dynamite. Certain marinas have electrical leakage into the water which will eat your zincs quickly also. If you are in a new to you marina I would pay close attention to zinc usage until you get a good feel for how quickly they deteriorate. Some folks go thru pretty big zincs in 3 months while others last 9 months or maybe more. In my marina, at my slip and my boat I get 7-8 months on my setup. Others in the same marina get significantly less. You are overdue to check yours if they haven't been seen since Sept. (in my opinion)

Not staying on top of the zinc issue will start typically to eat at your prop first. Props are a very expensive way to control electrolysis. Zincs seem expensive until you buy a prop at $1200.00 to $1800.00.

That's my experience in the Puget Sound since 1981. Yours may vary.
2bucks is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2008, 07:40 PM   #5
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

Squalicum Marina in Bellingham put the kibosh on divers wiping down boat bottoms several years go. They can change zincs, knock off barnacles, work on underwater hardware, but no wiping down the bottom. We have the boat dove on every six months or so.

Zincs go away fairly fast in Squalicum Marina. At the end of six months the transom zincs are still pretty good because of the layer of fresh or brackish water on the surface at the head of Bellingham bay, but the shaft zincs will be almost gone. This seems to be typical of all the other owners I've talked to. It's a hot harbor. On the advice of the dive shop and our marine electric shop we hang a zinc--- usually an old, half-used up transom zinc--- overboard and down about six or seven feet on the end of a heavy cable clamped to one of the bronze rudder bars. Obviously we pull this up when we take the boat out, but it gives us a visual clue as to how things are going zinc-wise since we can pull it up every time we visit the boat (almost every weekend) and check it. A lot of boat owners in our marina do this. My wife made a large "remove before flight" sign we hang on the shifters to remind us to pull the zinc up if we're going out.

We've found all the things Ken said to be true regarding growth rates, light, etc. We use an ablative (sloughing) bottom paint with a very high copper content and we can go at least two years between bottom paintings. Actually we could go more but the propwash sloughs the paint off the rudders faster than it comes off the bottom itself. When the boat is pulled after 2 to 2-1/2 years the bottom itself is always clean. The rudders will have a fair number of barnacles on their trailing edges, as will the prop hubs. The blades will have hardly any to none. The shafts and struts will have a few. Also some of the through hull intakes.

When we have the bottom painted we have one coat put on overall and then a second coat for the first foot or so down from the waterline, on the forebody of the hull all the way to the keel, and on the rudders.

With ablative paint, the more you use the boat the better it works other than the effect on the rudders from the prop blast.* We use our boat as much as the wind and my schedule allows during the year so I'm sure this accounts for the relatively little growth we get on the bottom.



-- Edited by Marin at 21:44, 2008-06-14
Marin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-16-2008, 12:15 PM   #6
Senior Member
 
Chris Foster's Avatar
 
City: Anacortes, WA
Vessel Name: Thea
Vessel Model: 46 Grand Banks Classic
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 280
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

Sounds like I know what one of my first chores is when I get up there this July - either track down a diver or find a dive equipment rental shop in Anacortes.

When I first got to the marina, I checked the marina to boat ground potential and found no DC and*less than*100 millivolt AC - so I don't think it's a real "hot" place.

I originally learned to dive in Monterey Bay in November - 48 degree water at 40 feet, as opposed to the balmy 54 at the surface.* So going below myself isn't something that I'd look forward to, but I'd like to get a chance to see for myself how things look.

Back in San Diego, we kids routinely swam off the back of the boat in the marina.* Funny looking back - probably 80% of the boats in Shelter Island dumped their heads directly overboard back then.* Somehow we managed to survive...

But maybe that does explain the extra pair of eyes that sprouted in the back of my head around that time...*

-- Edited by Chris Foster at 14:20, 2008-06-16
Chris Foster is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-16-2008, 10:51 PM   #7
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

Quote:
Chris Foster wrote:


Back in San Diego, we kids routinely swam off the back of the boat in the marina. Funny looking back - probably 80% of the boats in Shelter Island dumped their heads directly overboard back then. Somehow we managed to survive...
I read a medical study awhile back that showed that people who grow up on or spend a lot of time around farms tend to have the lowest rates of colds. flu, and so on.* This is attributed to their being exposed to all sorts of "bad" bugs and whatnot at an early age which causes their immune systems to be much more resistive to disease than people who grow up in an urban environment and are not exposed to animals, manure, etc.

I did not grow up on a farm but I spent many summers at camps and ranches through the 50s and 60s on the mainland (we lived in Hawaii), so I was around horses, cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens several months out of every year, doing chores like cleaning out stables and pens, spreading manure on fields, etc.* While I can't say for sure this had a positive effect on my health I have been very resistive of colds and flu all my life EXCEPT when I have been around someone else's kids a lot.

So perhaps you got the same sort of benefit as a kid swimming in the not-so-pristine waters of the marina.

*
Marin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-17-2008, 12:36 PM   #8
Senior Member
 
Chris Foster's Avatar
 
City: Anacortes, WA
Vessel Name: Thea
Vessel Model: 46 Grand Banks Classic
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 280
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

I've seen similar stuff on the proliferation of the various sanitizing products sold to wipe down kitchen counters after every spill, wipe off the grocery cart handle, etc etc. Seems that the immune system needs exercise just like the rest of the body, and if you protect it from every little exposure, it gets fat & lazy

(This from an expert on being fat & lazy).
Chris Foster is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-17-2008, 12:52 PM   #9
Enigma
 
RT Firefly's Avatar
 
City: Slicker?
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 16,566
RE: Routine service / inspection by a diver?

Hiya,*
**
Thanks Chris,*I had a good chuckle over that one (expertise on fat and laziness) and my belly fat jiggled....


-- Edited by RT Firefly at 14:53, 2008-06-17
RT Firefly is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
holding Tank inspection port motion30 Other Trawler Systems 7 08-03-2011 05:09 AM
Fire Extinguisher Inspection Max Simmons General Discussion 9 06-11-2011 08:05 AM
Another Inspection AllanY General Discussion 3 05-04-2010 12:56 AM
Electricity in water / diver drownings Keith General Discussion 33 04-18-2010 10:51 AM
Diver installed Zincs Forkliftt General Maintenance 9 02-07-2010 05:04 AM

» Trawler Port Captains
Port Captains are TF volunteers who can serve as local guides or assist with local arrangements and information. Search below to locate Port Captains near your destination. To learn more about this program read here: TF Port Captain Program





All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:13 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0
Copyright 2006 - 2012