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ANTIFOULING
If you keep your boat in the water for more than a week at a time, you require antifouling. This is a special biocide paint that is applied below the waterline every year and helps prevent weed growth to keep your hull as smooth as possible. Keeping your hull clean increases the efficiency and performance of your engine. Over the course of a season's boating, with no antifoul, your hull will become a breeding ground for all types of marine life e.g. weed, barnacles, and mussels.
- From 2 weeks in the water, your hull will have a brown slime reducing the performance of your boat slightly
- After 4 weeks, weed is present and barnacles begin to form, causing you to use more fuel and higher revs to achieve the same cruising speed
- After 8 weeks, your hull will have long strands of weed with barnacles establishing themselves and mussel growth beginning. Performance will be severely reduced with your engine "labouring" as it pushes the boat through the water. It is unlikely that you will be able to get onto the plane or cruise at your normal speed/rpm combination. Very visible increase in smoke from your engine, blackening your stern
- After 12 weeks, your floating caravan will have hor d'ourves! Severe fouling, reduced maneuverability - even at slow speeds.
- Fouling varies with temperature.
The problem with traditional antifouling is that:
- its performance reduces greatly after a year
- it needs re-applied, which is time consuming and costly
- it leeches toxic particles into the water
- sanding and preparation every year is hazardous to your health
If you want the best available antifoul which only needs applied once, you should consider using our epoxy/copper antifouling.
The application requires the hull to be entirely cleaned and sanded to remove all traces of previously applied antifoul paint. Once keyed, we recommend that the hull is epoxied, then the copper/nickel powder is sprayed onto our special epoxy mix using computer controlled sprayers to achieve an even layer of antifouling protection of between 70-100 microns.
Accelerated testing has shown an annual loss of between 1.5 and 7microns per year of the copper/nickel which provides excellent protection from any marine growth.
Our copper antifouling:
- requires no annual burnishing or sanding
- requires minimal maintenance to provide long term antifouling protection
- is repairable where any scuffing or impact damage from floatsam has occured
- is electrically non-conductive therefore has no effect to electrolysis
- is water potable
- is friendly to the environment and sea creatures
Maintenance is as simple as power washing after lifting your boat out of the water and power washing again before launching. While your boat is out of the water, the hull picks up contaminants out of the air and these should be power washed off to assure the best level of protection for your hull.
Copper has been used over the last 200 years to provide the most effective antifouling protection and our system has an expected life time of at least 10 years with accelerated tests achieving 20+ years of protection. This is a one-time application that keeps on working year after year.
Check out our photo gallery of antifouling applications.
Our antifouling system can be applied on all types of hulls including wood, steel, GRP, and aluminium. The initial colour of the copper is a dark brown, turning to a copper green after a year's immersion in water.
Please contact us for a free quotation.