Bottom Paint recommendation

[Seevee]

Shopping for bottom paint for two applications:


First is to coat thruster blades and the tunnel on the trawler. I've used VELOX PLUS in the past and is not horrible, but expensive. And it takes time to apply because of the primer and then two or three coats.


Second application is to use it on a 17ft runabout, that already has bottom paint on it, but need a touch up.



Prefer the hard stuff. Not the ablative. But will listen to arguements for either.


And in another year or so, will be shopping for bottom paint for the trawler.



What does the wisdom say?

 

[FlyWright]

Here's what my yards have used the past 10 years with good results. In my brackish waters, it lasts 3-6 years with quarterly bottom scrubbing by the diver.

Sea Hawk Sharkskin Antifoul

 

[fstbttms]

Here's what my yards have used the past 10 years with good results. In my brackish waters, it lasts 3-6 years with quarterly bottom scrubbing by the diver.

Sea Hawk Sharkskin Antifoul

As a hull cleaner with 25 years experience, I wouldn't recommend a Sea Hawk product to my worst enemy, Sharkskin included. That said and in all fairness, I know plenty of Florida hull divers that love it.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Pettit Trinidad SR.

 

[Woodland Hills]

I have had good luck with Petit Prop Coat on my thruster blades and all my running gear. It is not to be confused with their Prop Speed product which is much more expensive and very complicated to correctly apply.

 

[Seevee]

Thx!


Woodland: Does the Petit Prop Coat need a primer? Seems pretty simple with a spray on.


Fsstbttms: Is the Pettit Trinidad SR available in pints or quarts? A gallon is more than I need.

 

[Seevee]

As a hull cleaner with 25 years experience, I wouldn't recommend a Sea Hawk product to my worst enemy, Sharkskin included. That said and in all fairness, I know plenty of Florida hull divers that love it.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Pettit Trinidad SR.

Fatbttms,


Why do you say the Sea Hawk is bad? Is it better in Florida for some reason?

 

[Cigatoo]

If you haven’t done so already check out the Jamestown Distributers Paint Survey. If you scroll to the bottom it will give you a map. Drill down to your area.
https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/document.do?docId=1203

 

[fstbttms]

Why do you say the Sea Hawk is bad? Is it better in Florida for some reason?

First off, I'd prefer if you got my name right.

There are two reasons I never recommend any Sea Hawk products:

1.- I have never found one that performed worth a damn here in the Bay Area. I have had customers haul their boats with relatively new Sea Hawk bottoms and repaint with something that actually works. Does it do the job in Florida? I couldn't tell you, but they sell a lot of it there, that's for sure.

2.- The company's entire management team did actual time in prison a few years ago for federal crimes involving the production and sale of their tributyl tin anti fouling paint products. The fact that they still manufacture TbT paints is bad enough. The fact that they lied to their customers and the EPA about it and continued to help poison the environment with it after it had become illegal to do so in this country is another and enough reason in and of itself to avoid Sea Hawk altogether, IMHO.

 

[Group9]

So much of it depends on where you are. Ask people in your area what works.

I've used SeaHawk and Petit Trinidad, and Petit Trinidad SR on the gulf coast of Mississippi and they all worked great. The Petit Trinidad Sr and the Petit Trinidad both worked great in the Bahamas, too.

But, I used Petit Trinidad on my boat in south Florida, and I was having to put a diver on it once a month, three months after it hit the water.

I can't remember what I used in the Chesapeake, but I asked the yard guy what he recommended, and that's what I used, and it worked pretty good.

 

[fstbttms]

I used Petit Trinidad on my boat in south Florida, and I was having to put a diver on it once a month, three months after it hit the water.

Is it your position that you shouldn't have had to have your bottom cleaned monthly in Florida?

 

[Seevee]

So much of it depends on where you are. Ask people in your area what works.

I've used SeaHawk and Petit Trinidad, and Petit Trinidad SR on the gulf coast of Mississippi and they all worked great. The Petit Trinidad Sr and the Petit Trinidad both worked great in the Bahamas, too.

But, I used Petit Trinidad on my boat in south Florida, and I was having to put a diver on it once a month, three months after it hit the water.

I can't remember what I used in the Chesapeake, but I asked the yard guy what he recommended, and that's what I used, and it worked pretty good.

Group 9,


Wow, I'd love to only clean my boat once a month here in St. Pete, in the warm months. I see growth in a week and clean it every other week, and that's been the case for every boat I've had here for the past 20 years.



Boats without bottom paint (which I've had plenty), show barnacles in 2 to 3 days!


Thx for the info.

 

[Seevee]

First off, I'd prefer if you got my name right.

There are two reasons I never recommend any Sea Hawk products:

1.- I have never found one that performed worth a damn here in the Bay Area. I have had customers haul their boats with relatively new Sea Hawk bottoms and repaint with something that actually works. Does it do the job in Florida? I couldn't tell you, but they sell a lot of it there, that's for sure.

2.- The company's entire management team did actual time in prison a few years ago for federal crimes involving the production and sale of their tributyl tin anti fouling paint products. The fact that they still manufacture TbT paints is bad enough. The fact that they lied to their customers and the EPA about it and continued to help poison the environment with it after it had become illegal to do so in this country is another and enough reason in and of itself to avoid Sea Hawk altogether, IMHO.

fstbttms,
Sorry for screwing up your name....


Reason no 2 is reason enough not to do business with these folks regardless of how good their product is. Thx!

 

[Nomad Willy]

I like to get several 3/4 to 7/8ths used up gallon cans of whatever copper paint I can find at the yard. Based on the theory that most don’t stir very often and the copper largely collects in the bottom of the can. Gone a long time on the last coating.

 

[Ken E.]

I've never heard of the Seahawks' company history mentioned above but I have used their ablative paint for 20 years up here with good results...2-3 years on single-coat with no growth.

 

[Seevee]

I've never heard of the Seahawks' company history mentioned above but I have used their ablative paint for 20 years up here with good results...2-3 years on single-coat with no growth.

I always like to verify stuff like this....


https://www.tradeonlytoday.com/indu...s-executives-prison-terms-banned-coating-case


https://www.passagemaker.com/trawler-news/sea-hawk-paints-maker-indicted-over-tbt-use


Food for thought.....

 

[Ken E.]

I always like to verify stuff like this....


https://www.tradeonlytoday.com/indu...s-executives-prison-terms-banned-coating-case


https://www.passagemaker.com/trawler-news/sea-hawk-paints-maker-indicted-over-tbt-use


Food for thought.....

Thanks for posting that......pretty damning. I think I'll be changing brands next time around.

 

[FlyWright]

No wonder it's worked so well!!

 

[Group9]

Is it your position that you shouldn't have had to have your bottom cleaned monthly in Florida?

When I moved down there, I had no idea how much worse the barnacle growth was in south Florida. I took my boat out, three months after the bottom job I put on it when I first bought it, and couldn't get it on plane (out of the yard it had jumped up on plane). I told my harbormaster and he laughed when I told him I had gone three months without a hull cleaning. After that, I paid to have it cleaned every month.

Pretty much everyone I knew down there in Miami was having it done monthly, or abouts.

My point was, where you are makes a lot of difference in how bottom paint performs, and you have to be careful that you are not comparing apples and oranges when talking about bottom paint performance.

 

[O C Diver]

I switched to Petit Trinidad SR last year and have my bottom cleaned monthly in Florida, every 2 to 3 months in Maryland. Boat doesn't go fast enough for ablative to work, so need it scrubbed anyway. I only care that the paint keeps the hard growth (barnacles) from starting.

Ted

 

[psneeld]

Ted...not sure why you think 6 knots is too slow for ablatives...


Maybe Pettit ablatives ????...some didn't work on my 20 knot sportfish at all.


But I have only good things to say of the 3 ablative or polishing Interlux paints I have had on 2 sailboats and my 6.3 knot trawler.


They definitely wore off for me as the layered paint colors have been a good telltale for me.

 

[rgano]

Is it your position that you shouldn't have had to have your bottom cleaned monthly in Florida?

You do not need a diver monthly in Florida, at least not in my part of it for the first six months after a new bottom job using Trinidad SR. After that, quarterly worked out about right with me doing it myself on the trawler in the warmer months. I used Sharkskin on my lift-kept non-trawler Pilot because it really didn't matter about quality of paint; I was just getting tired of seeing the bottom showing through where the paint was worn off the hull. Then came Hurricane Michael and the destruction of my pier and lift (finally being rebuilt as I type). After nine months of being in the water requiring monthly diver visits to keep the three year old Sharkskin clean off, I hauled and repainted with Sharkskin because I was assuming (duh!) the pier was about to be rebuilt. It was not time at all before the bottom was fouling with slime and barnacles. Crap bottom pain for sure.

 

[tadhana]

We have been using Pettit Ultima SR 60 for about a decade we get 2-3 years between coats. We are a 7 kt boat. The ablative paint works exceedingly well we have never had a diver touch the bottom. To be fair, the boat is run a lot 3200 hours in the past 6 years alone. Between FL and New England. We use the same paint on the thruster and tube we haul once a year to check the hull and paint the thruster prop and paint the rudder.

 

[Seevee]

Talk to me about ablative vs hard paint.


For the most part, I like hard stuff. Is there a reason I should switch?


And can one be applied over the other?


Thx!

 

[rgano]

I mostly used hard paint on my wooden trawler because it tended to sit between cruises which required a paint which could withstand repeated diver scrubs. I had some ablative on it once, and it worked wonderfully. We started out on a cruise up the rivers from the Gulf Coast in 2006 to beyond Chattanooga and back. I applied red Pettit Hydrocoat ablative to the hull in May 06, and by September when we departed, the paint was dark brown. Near the end of the trip the paint was back to bright red as the surface layers wore away. A month or so later, back to brown. My take away was that my boat was normally not underway frequently or long enough to merit ablative paint.

 

[Woodland Hills]

The Petit Prop Cote does not need any special primer or prep work, it’s not like their PropSpeed product.

I have been using a commercial Sherwin-Williams ablative product with good results from Florida to Chesapeake Bay. It is called SeaGuard.

 

[tadhana]

Ablative paints do not build up, so you do not ever have the need to strip the bottom. Most ablative paints so not mind if the boat is hauled for the winter and then relaunched. For a boat stored on a lift it is an excellent solution. Typically you put on a first coat of a contrasting color. In our case it is black. Over that you paint the color you desire. In our case green. We applied one black and 2 green coats the first year.

After that you do not need to paint again until the black starts to show through. the ablative paint tends to wear away a bit faster along the waterline where wave action washes it off, and along the stem where the boats water speed is most noticeable. It also washes off the rudder fairly quickly due to prop wash. In our case, we haul once a year to change the anodes and touch up the bottom paint where needed. But so long as the bottom is green, we know there is adequate paint and no need to apply more paint.

Since 2014 the boat has been hauled 5 times. We have touched up along the waterline 4 times but only had to paint the entire bottom once in 2018. We live aboard and do run the boat a lot, putting on on average 600 hours per year. That works out to +/- 4000 nautical miles per year. We have never had a diver clean the bottom. That said, the only time we sit still is one the months of May and October in the Chesapeake and, is 3 months in winter we are in Lake Monroe in fresh water. Being in fresh water, there is minimal growth. Most hard paints cannot sit in fresh water and remain active when they get back to salt water.

If you look at this picture from August 2019 you can see that we painted an area about 12-18" along the waterline and along the stem. In actuality we could have painted only half of that area but we were using up an entire gallon of paint. Half a gallon would have sufficed. This paint job is known as a "Carolina Smile". I first learned about it at a yard on the NC outer banks. The paint is Pettit Ultima SR 60.

 

[Seevee]

So, as I understand,


The ablative is better if the boat is stored on a lift.


The ablative is better if the boat might go into fresh water and back to salt.


With the ablative, one doesn't have to strip the old paint off.


When the ablative wears off, just add more to the wear spots?


Does ablative do a better job at resisting barnacles, minimizing cleaning? (right now in the warm months I clean every other week)


Which would hold better on a prop or thruster blades?

 

[tadhana]

Seevee
My family has owned a boatyard in Marthas Vineyard for 60 years they are currently hauling and launching over 400 boats per year. They use ablative bottom paints unless an owner requests something else. Their customer base is sail and power, wood and glass, up to about about 60 feet.

I ran 3 big yards on the Chesapeake. Our preferred paint was Pettit and used ablative almost exclusively.

On my own boats (sail and power) I have been used Pettit ablative for 25+ years. For 20 years,we were exclusively on the Chesapeake. The past 6 years we have been going south every winter. For two winters we sat 2 months in Cocoa FL and also one of those years got stuck in Marathon for a month. Never had a diver clean the bottom in FL but twice had the propeller cleaned. The past few summers we have spent a month or more on a mooring in Martha's Vineyard. So far in the past 25 years we have never hired a diver to clean the bottom.

In our case, we are "full time cruisers" so the boat is in the water year round. We run the boat a lot more than most, and that certainly helps keep the bottom and prop clean. Pettit Ultima SR 60 has been an excellent paint for our cruising style.

We use the same Pettit ablative paint on the thruster prop and tunnel. We have not found the ablative to wear off in the tunnel, but we do repaint the thruster prop and tunnel on our annual haul out anyway when we touch up the bottom. Others may have a different experience with ablative on thrusters. We use thruster so seldom that the brushes have gotten stuck from lack of use.

 

[rgano]

If you are having you bottom cleaned every other week, ablative paint will be worn away in short order.

 

[Woodland Hills]

We have ablative paint and we tell the diver to just remove the barnacles and leave the weed. We also only have the diver in if we are stopped for more than a couple of weeks continuously.

The thruster blades and props, shafts and tabs get Pettit PropCote. We were stuck in Stuart for two months without being able to move the boat and had to do a short haul to scrape barnacles. But once we got going again the bottom stayed clean for 5 more months on the way north, in the Chesapeake and all the way back to Jacksonville.