prop speed coating

pulled the boat yesterday and the yard suggested prop speed coating for the prop and the rudder. Your thoughts.

What's a speed coating?

Really?
Never heard of prop speed or the several other clones?
Amazing. (-;

Looking at the pics, why?
I see no barnakles, apart from having blown the antifoul looks pretty good.

Though on closet inspection, a few pink spots, electrical issues? To many anodes perhaps?

We have used Prop Speed on our boats, which a used primarily in the Chesapeake, with very satisfactory results. It is a covering that must be applied in accordance with the manufacturers instructions. We usually have little to no growth in the running gear and what does attach itself to the props can easily be scrapped off with a plastic scrapper without damage to the coating.

I had the yard coat the prop with Propspeed. It lasted about a month until it was all worn off. Not worth it to me.

David

I believe Prop Speed is a 2-part application. with a min-max time between coatings, 3 minutes or so and it is temperature sensitive. If this time frame was not followed, the coating will fail. That is likely the issue David experienced as it is not unusual for a boat yard employee to apply the 1st coat, move on to another job and return to apply the 2nd coat in 2 hours, or the next day. We had that happen once and discussed that with the yard owner when we had an issue later that summer.

magna 6882 said:

pulled the boat yesterday and the yard suggested prop speed coating for the prop and the rudder. Your thoughts.

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MV CLASSEA has had PropSpeed applied the last 2 times she have her bottom painted, the picture attached was after 3 years the 1st time used . . . Because our trawlers don’t turn the RPM’s planning vessels turn, the product stays on longer and therefore, IMPO, is worth it . . . I does have to be applied properly.

If you you hadn’t noticed any performance loss, I wouldn’t. Given where you boat, cold water, I would clean, epoxy primer the prop/rudder and then paint with bottom paint. It’s not a perfect fix but for the cost would beat the PropSpeed.

A small kit of PropSpeed for a 12”-24” prop is ~$300 plus maybe 2 more for the rudder. Add the cost of the meticulous prep and application, it’s not a cheap project.

i put it on a prop i sent out to the shop for repair, as when i got it back it was in perfect condition to apply it. haven't done enough time/hours to judge whether or not it holds up. i used prop glide. it's easy enough to apply but as has been mentioned, you need to follow the directions to the letter. it an interesting finish, and i think it should work very well as long as it holds on.

Magna, I've had reasonable results with Petit prop coat, 18/24 months between recoating.
Easier to do than Pspeed, a lot less $$, lasts a lot longer than simple spray galv, but good prep/weather is still important. I used two spray cans, thin coats.

I'd stay with bottom paint on the rudder, ask a guru in your boat yard about whether your boat is over-zinced.

GoneFarrell said:

Magna, I've had reasonable results with Petit prop coat, 18/24 months between recoating.
Easier to do than Pspeed, a lot less $$, lasts a lot longer than simple spray galv, but good prep/weather is still important. I used two spray cans, thin coats.

I'd stay with bottom paint on the rudder, ask a guru in your boat yard about whether your boat is over-zinced.

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My props and running gear have the Petit prop coat on Sb and Micron CSC on Pt.
In the spring, when I normally haul and renew whatever I am using, my haulout didn't happen. I did have a diver scrape the hard growth off the running gear, scrub the soft growth off the hull and renew zincs.
Saturday, Oct 30) I returned the boat from Saltspring to Coal Harbour. I couldn't get full revs Stb due to barnacles. Got full revs Pt, but still needed to scrub soot from the transom on arrival. This tells me that both sides are crusted with barnacles but Stb is much worse than Pt. Haulout will again be scheduled for the early spring. Hopefully this one will not be cancelled or delayed due to Covid.

I have not used PS, but I had the opportunity some time ago to wander amongst the charter fishing and other large boats pulled out for a hurricane and set cheek by jowl in the local boatyard. I am guessing I looked carefully at over fifty boat bottoms, most with PS applied. If as evidenced by waterline growth, the boat had sat a lot, barnacles were evident on the PS coated running gear. The hard run charter fishermen were universally clean with PS intact.

Those pink spots on the prop need some addressing. Maybe a good barrier coat before antifoul paint will help isolate the blades. Copper-based antifoul applied directly to a bronze prop is asking for it.

If your Propspeed only stayed on a month, you have an issue with the yard that applied it, not the product. It has been on my prop for 3 years, and looks like the day they did it. Prop has run about 600 hours in that time.

DDW said:

If your Propspeed only stayed on a month, you have an issue with the yard that applied it, not the product. It has been on my prop for 3 years, and looks like the day they did it. Prop has run about 600 hours in that time.

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Absolutely. The key to propspeed is the application. We do use it and are very pleased with it. Just bottom cleaner wipes gently. As we are interested in maintaining performance and speed, we are the target customer.

Simi 60 said:

Really?
Never heard of prop speed or the several other clones?
Amazing. (-;

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Just asking... didn't need a stupid answer for a stupid question.

Seevee said:

Just asking... didn't need a stupid answer for a stupid question.

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Lighten up princess

bnoft said:

We have used Prop Speed on our boats, which a used primarily in the Chesapeake, with very satisfactory results. It is a covering that must be applied in accordance with the manufacturers instructions. We usually have little to no growth in the running gear and what does attach itself to the props can easily be scrapped off with a plastic scrapper without damage to the coating.

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Yeah, those manufacturing instructions also have tight tolerance. The yard we use had a lot of problems and now recommends Coval as an alternative. Correctly applied in the right environmental conditions prop speeds works great.

Right now we have had Coval on for almost two years and it wasn't until the last dive on the boat last month did our diver mention hard growth starting to build up that needed to be scraped and that was after a very warm summer season as well.

YMMV

-tozz

Simi 60 said:

Lighten up princess

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Seeing how Simi is being a jerk, can someone tell me what the prop speed it without a stupid answer? Thx

It is a paint for the running gear. Application is critical as to how it is done.

We just applied propglide on our gear yesterday.
The guy at the yard who applied it says it is pretty much the same as propspeed as far as he can tell.
Same application specs as well but only $200 on Amazon.

Seevee said:

Seeing how Simi is being a jerk, can someone tell me what the prop speed it without a stupid answer? Thx

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Wow, you really did get out of the wrong side of bed this morning.

But here, let me help.


https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=propspeed

jefndeb said:

We just applied propglide on our gear yesterday.
The guy at the yard who applied it says it is pretty much the same as propspeed as far as he can tell.
Same application specs as well but only $200 on Amazon. View attachment 122657

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They put your prop nuts on backwards, the half height nut should be on first and the full height nut should be put on last. When you tighten the second nut it partly unloads the first nut. When the hal height nut is second and tightened up it will partly unload the full height nut. You want the prop riding on the full height nut. To seat the prop you use the full height nut first and then remove it and put on the half height nut first.

Comodave said:

They put your prop nuts on backwards, the half height nut should be on first and the full height nut should be put on last. When you tighten the second nut it partly unloads the first nut. When the hal height nut is second and tightened up it will partly unload the full height nut. You want the prop riding on the full height nut. To seat the prop you use the full height nut first and then remove it and put on the half height nut first.

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Learned something new.

Comodave said:

To seat the prop you use the full height nut first and then remove it and put on the half height nut first.

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Tru dat.

jefndeb said:

We just applied propglide on our gear yesterday.
The guy at the yard who applied it says it is pretty much the same as propspeed as far as he can tell.
Same application specs as well but only $200 on Amazon. View attachment 122657

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Guys at yards say that because they're not certified to apply propspeed and they pay less for propglide and other copies so make more.

I’ve DIY propspeed three times. It. Is. Hard. Depending on conditions you can easily be barely a minute inside your window between the first product and the second and run out of time. Miss the window and it doesn’t work.

It’s probably the best product, not really expensive when it works and you get a full 3 years. Really expensive when somebody cuts corners and it doesn’t.

I've used Prop Speed for about 15 years, always applied by a boatyard. I get 3+ years. It's expensive but effective. As noted a couple times above, it is very critical in its application and very easy to screw up, especially as a DIY. I do a lot of my own maintenance on the boat but I'd never attempt Prop Speed.

ghost said:

I’ve DIY propspeed three times. It. Is. Hard. Depending on conditions you can easily be barely a minute inside your window between the first product and the second and run out of time. Miss the window and it doesn’t work.

It’s probably the best product, not really expensive when it works and you get a full 3 years. Really expensive when somebody cuts corners and it doesn’t.

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I agree with Ghost.
When done right, Propspeed is a game changer. The photo is of Klee Wyck as she is being pulled, two and a half years from last haul.

Ok, Prop Speed works if your boat goes fast enough to throw the barnacles off or a diver scrubs them off. It's of little value if you don't use your boat or have a diver scrub it. Simply, it doesn't have chemicals that repel growth.

My experience with 2 boats;
On my charter boat it worked great. The boat cruises at 15 knots and would be run frequently to throw the small forming barnacles off. The propeller was turning 1,400 RPM which kept it clean. The stainless steel skeg and rudder were also clean.

The trawler is very different. It cruises around 6 to 7 knots. The water flow (speed) isn't fast enough to throw the barnacles off the skeg, stern bearing holder, and external water strainer (the rudder is fiberglass). The propeller turns 600 RPM, so it stays mostly clean. The prop nuts, shaft and anode also get some growth. By far the worst is the stern bearing holder which sees the least water flow.

By far the best solution for me was Pacifica Plus bottom bottom paint. The first year it was perfect where it stuck. The paint doesn't adhere well to clean metal. Last year I did an experiment and primed all the metal with the spray zinc antifouling (Barnacle Buster I think) and then put Pacifica Plus over it. That combination was perfect. I lost paint in a few spots where something may have hit it, but everything else including the stern bearing holder was clean. We sandblasted everything back down to bare metal and repeated the process again at my annual haulout. It might have been good for another year, but materials are cheap and the risk isn't worth it.

Pacifica Plus Antifouling Boat Paint | Interlux

Ted