Bottom Paint

[Ken Lewis]

I am in the process of removing a buildup of bottom paint, I have used VC17 for the Great Lakes and it has been very good. I am however going to saltwater in the spring, I have used Pettit Trinidad and Interlux CSC on previous boats. This time I am looking at Interlux VC Offshore. Any thoughts, opinions. What’s your favorite?

[Michael Claus]

Ken, I am using Pettit Trinidad here in Miami. Water temperatures are between 75 (winter) to almost 90 (at my mooring in summer). Others around me use different brands, but we all do the same, go diving every 4-6 weeks and remove slime, barnacles and what have you. I repaint every 2 years and in the beginning I need to dive every 2 months and after 1 to 1 1/2 years every 4 weeks. I do not think that it works without scraping in between. When you look into the tests the magazine "Practical Sailor" is doing, over 1 year and 2 years, you find your answers, but Trinidad SR and Pettit are always amongst the top perfomers. Of course, salt water is not salt water, the temprature has a lot to do with performance and also whether you stay year long in the water, like we do here. If you go out in autumn I would suggest an ablative paint, they are 'fast' and for 6 months at a time, they perform great. Micron is a good one. I used it when I lived in Germany and sailed the salty waters of the North Sea without any problem, but water was very cold there.

Michael
SY Sail La Vie
Moody 41
Miami, Florida

[Clint Boram]

Hey Ken,

I bought a boat from Eire, PA this past Aug. and moved it to the Chesapeake Bay. The bottom had a thinned VC-17. Other multihull sailor in my club have not had very good results with VC-17 in the brackish waters of the Chesapeake. We just hauled out the weekend before Thanksgiving and the bottom only had small areas of slime and maybe 5 barnacles. How often the boat is sailed? Does she stay in the slip for several weeks at a time? A friend has a Person 33, he brought the boat up to MD from Oriental NC two years ago with Pettit Trinidad, the paint did horrible, but he only sails every few weeks. I will add the last year I put on two coats of Micron CSC on my F-27 and was very happy with the polishing qualities of the paint. I did get a build up of slime just below the water line and would dive to wipe the hulls every couple of weeks.

Good luck