So power washing doesn't remove Horizon? That's good news. The Interlux rep told us you can't power wash their Micron ablatives. Well, you can, but it will just get washed right off into an expensive coloring of the boat yard. He said you had to let whatever is on the hull dry out and then use a stiff brush or broom to take it off. That didn't sound appealing.

Good to know. For my situation I am really leaning towards this product. The Petit dealer said if I use two colours I only need to paint where the base colour is showing through, that way there should be little or no build up. Plus we haul every year (this winter thing ya know) so it should be easy to monitor the colour and the fact that it can be out of water for the winter lets me paint fall or spring whenever I have time.

I was about to start stripping our VC17 off the hull, as Randy Sherman did the manual way with a sander. Acetone will take it off, but it's really slow and nasty and it's going to use gallons of acetone and literally tons of rags.

I did not want to do the sander thing because I already have arthritis in my finger joints and since we heat with wood and I'm in the middle of yearly cutting of wood, I have all the pain in the hands I need. So I looked into soda blasting, was going to cost about $2700 to do that, a lot of that is tenting the boat and controlling dust. So I was facing some hard choices here, none of which were appealing.

This morning I was looking at spec sheets for Pettit's Hydrocoat as Bill had recommended it. I like the idea of water based coatings, I've had good luck with them in past. In the prep instructions it said:

"Teflon based antifoulings should be sanded thoroughly with 80 grit sandpaper to remove the chalky outer surface, wiped
clean of sanding residue, and then may be over coated directly with Hydrocoat. Traditional, soft antifoulings should be removed before applying
Hydrocoat."

So I'm thinking that pretty much says that you don't have to totally strip VC17, which is Teflon based, just make sure it's well sanded and well adhered.

So I sent an email to Pettit asking them to clarify that it can go over VC17 without completely removing it and their tech guy replied "Hydrocoat is the product you need." So I emailed back asking him to confirm directly that it can go over freshwater VC17, not VC17 Offshore but freshwater Teflon based VC17. Cause he really didn't come right out and say that. And he replied that it can. It turns out that Hydrocoat has PTFE in it (Teflon) so I expect that's why it's compatible.

So for Great Lakes sailors heading south, I believe that is the magic bullet. Works in both salt and fresh water, self polishing ablative, can be burnished with 600 grit paper, no buildup, true multiseason antifouling. Bonus - it is also about 25% less money than any other self polishing ablative I can find.

Some days the dice roll your way. Awesome.

Well, turns out the magic bullet is only a magic bullet for US Great Lakes sailors since for some reason which I have yet to clarify, Pettit does not sell Hydrocoat in Canada. I tried to order 3 gallons of it from 2 Pettit dealers, both of them said they can't order it, didn't know why but it wasn't for sale in Canada.

I asked this of the Pettit tech guy and he said that was true, it wasn't for sale in Canada. Great to know since when I originally emailed them I gave them my full name and address. You would think that......jeez. I asked him if he could tell me why and no answer to that one. So I don't know if it's because Pettit hasn't bothered to get it approved or if it wasn't approved, though I can't imagine why a water based product wouldn't be approved.

On top of that I found a .pdf on compatibility on Pettit's website and for any of their products except SR21 (VC17 clone) over VC17 it said "remove". So you really gotta wonder......

Today we put the frame and winter cover on and I did a test sand with 100 grit paper and I was surprised at how well it was coming off. One blue layer, one copper layer, this dark brown stuff of unknown origin then the gelcoat, which appears to be grayish not white like the topsides.

So I'm going to suck it up, buy lots of ibuprofen and sand the damn stuff off. Then buy Horizons which despite being full of VOCs is readily available up here. And barrier coat since today's test proved I'm going to get into the gelcoat no matter how hard I try not to.

Damn magic bullets!

Update on how "easy" this is coming off. The VC17 comes off pretty easy, I'd be done by now if that's all there was. But this dark brown stuff under it is proving to be a tough customer. I believe it is a primer of some sort but it is really well stuck to the gel coat. So far I have spent 17 hours grinding away at this with 80 grit paper of which I have used about 35 discs and I am around half done. A nasty, nasty job indeed.

Thanks Tom, I suspected it was something like that but without any way to verify for certain what it was the only safe thing to do was take it all off. We are going to barrier coat it in spring, it would be kind of stupid not to do that once it's all back to gel coat.

They say that you enjoy more the things you earned the hard way. I am hoping this to be true!

Update on this, I talked to Interlux about the brown stuff and they confirmed that's likely VCTar and as long as it's well stuck (it sure was!) it is fine to overcoat it with Interprotect once well sanded with 80 grit.

They suggested putting some Interprotect over a small area of it as a test to see what happens, as long as it doesn't craze or lift it's fine since VCTar is also epoxy based. So I got a quart and did that and it seems fine though given the temps now (snowing as I look out the window at the moment) it was touch and go for it to set up, it was 9C when I put it on so I used a heat lamp to help that out a bit.

It took me 3 days to sand off half of one side taking off the VCTar and I did the entire remainder of the boat in 2 days only taking off the VC17, what a difference. A little knowledge makes a huge difference and once again, it came from this forum, thank you Tom! I just wish I had posted about it earlier!