Bottom Paint Touch Up 2018

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Pgutierrez's picture
Pgutierrez
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Joined: 5/14/12
Posts: 227
Bottom Paint Touch Up 2018

Greetings, looking forward to splashing Pente (2000 C36) on the upper Mississippi six weeks from now.  This will be fifth year on Pente.  Wing keel gently kissed (rubbed) a few sand bars past summer.  No damage except I need to re coat where the previous anti fouling bottom paint was  rubbed off.  Boat originally had VC 17. Was told by West Marine their FW21 was compatible with VC17 and am in my third season planning on using FW21.  
I need advise:  where last years FW21 was rubbed off by sand bar, how to properly pre coat with sealer prior to applying FW21?  Same for a few areas where the lift straps on the boat travel lift rubbed off some of the FW21.  My thought was to lightly sand, wipe area clean with solvent, apply barrier coat, then FW21.  Which barrier coat?  Agree, disagree?  Better idea?  Looking forward to your comments.
Thanks.

peter g

2000 C36, MK2, Hull. #1897
wonderful, wonderful, wonderful ! ! !.   5 th Catalina

 

 

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pkeyser
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Posts: 672

I think you are on the right track. In the areas that you want repair the barrier coating, you will probably want to sand the bottom paint off with a wide margin so you can feather the new barrier coat thickness.

I've been trying to reduce my bottom paint consumption in an effort to limit the build up overtime and related flaking. We live north of Boston. I've been using the West Marine CPP ablative paint- only touching up where needed (typically a band about a foot and half wide just below the waterline). I made it three years with mininal fouling and use about a third of a gallon for touch up each season. The paint has gotten thin, and this year I will paint the entire hull bottom again. This seems to help with build up and is fine for cruising but probably would not be optimum for racing.

I used to repaint every season and this created a big build up over the 20 years of owning my previous boat. I had to strip it entirely, which was one of the worst maintenance jobs I've ever undertaken and do not want to repeat with our current boat.

Paul & Wendy Keyser
"First Light"
Rye NH
2005 C36 MKII #2257
Wing, M35B

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Chachere
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Posts: 826

Peter -
I agree with Paul, except that I'm not sure why you would need to put a barrier coat on the keel itself.  Its lead, so there is nothing to permeate (which is what the barrier coat is there for, no?).  But wiser minds may weigh in on this...

Paul (and whomever) -
We sail in similar waters (homeported at the southern end of New England on east end of Long Island -- as you'll recall, our boats passed each other on the Atlantic this summer off the Isles of Shoals!). 
We've been using West PCA Gold ablative paint (which is actually manufacture by Pettit, if I'm not mistaken) since we purchased her in 2010. (Its sale priced this week, as it usually is at some point every spring) 
We were hauling and repainting every 2 years, but most recently stretched it out to 3 years as an experiment, and were pleasantly surprised when she was hauled this fall that -- outside of seaweed growth at the waterline -- the hull was pretty clean (a few barnacles at the leading edge and bottom of the keel, but not much else).  We do put a second coat at the same foot and a half-wide band just below the waterline, as well as the leading edge of the keel and rudder, as that seems to be where the action is, so to speak, and can be more aggressively scrubbed during the season. 

I try to sand off the last coat and the one below each time we repaint, under the theory that we'll progressively lessen the accumulated build-up.  Switching colors with each coat helps identify how many coats one has sanded off (hint: if you've run out of stock color choices, you can get creative and mix 2 together -- our most recent paint job combined some leftover black with blue and resulted in a nice navy color that co-incidentally matches our canvas color).

 

Matthew Chachère
s/v ¡Que Chévere!
(Formerly 1985 C36 MKI #466 tall rig fin keel M25)
2006 Catalina Morgan 440 #30.
Homeported in eastern Long Island, NY

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