Don't think this is worthy of a tech article but thought it might be good to post my experience with how much material we used to finish the bottom this spring. Last fall I sanded all the VC17 off and this spring? (? worst ever spring to do work on a boat up here) did the barrier coat and anti fouling.

I used Interprotect 2000E and, by their online calculator which does a length * beam * a factor they use for sailboats, to get 5 coats I would need 8 gallons of product. I actually ended up using less than a gallon per coat, the first coat used the most at about .85 of a gallon, subsequent coats less and less as the thickness built. I was putting it on as thick as I dared, I found when I tested it last fall this stuff will not set up if it's too thick, it just turns to a rubbery yutz. We easily got the recommended 10 mil thickness using a 3/16" nap roller cover. They said to use a 3/8" nap but I saw a boat that was done with that nap and it was a very rough pebbly surface. Ours turned out pretty fair, not as slick as VC17 but still pretty decent.

We had bought both white and gray to alternate coats and make sure there were no thin or missed spots but the chandlery hosed us, one kit marked Gray was actually White. That particular day I had only brought that 1 kit with me, the boat is 2 hours from home, and there is no chandlery anywhere near our boat so I had to use it. You have to really watch your coverage when not using contrasting colors, Suzanne followed me as I rolled to make sure we missed nothing. It only used to be available in grey which must have made it difficult to ensure good coverage. The alternating colors are definitely the way to go.

For the antifouling I used Petit Horizons, their online calculator said I would need 3 gallons to get 3 coats. Put a base coat of black on and it used slightly more than half a gallon. The next coat was blue which I found a lot brighter than I wanted, so for the last coat I mixed the remaining half gallon of black with 1.5 gallons of blue and got a nice deep blue out of it. I have about 1.4 gallons of paint left over. The last coat went on yesterday.

Tuesday is the first launch day at our marina so while the crane is there we are lifting the boat forward on the cradle so I can repeat this work were the 7 pads for the cradle are. It has been a very tough year to get this done, very cold wet spring. We're supposed to launch May 8th but there's no way I'll have it done by then, weather forecast shows more rain and even if every day was perfect I'd be hard pressed to get it done in time. Fortunately, there are a couple of wood boat guys who won't be ready in time either so we're bringing the crane back in for a 3rd lift later in the month.

We took the winter tarp off yesterday and it was so nice to see the boat again. Suzanne made a whole new dodger and side windows and replaced the bimini top over the winter and we finished fitting it to the existing enclosure panels. She looks great with the new bottom paint and we continually get people commenting on what a pretty boat it is. These have to be one of the most graceful boats ever designed, IMHO.

Bottom line on this is that as we have found with calculators for house paint, they like to sell product. But it's better to have too much than too little.