Alcanboats Forum

What do all you folks use for anti fouling - bottom paint on your boats? Everything I look at has copper in it. I just found out the paint my marina uses has copper oxide.

Joe

I am a little suspicious that the last bottom paint used on my boat was also not compatible with aluminum. The last 2 summers we have not used any anti-fouling paint. Rather, we get in the water every couple of weeks and scrub the algae off the boat with a scrub brush. Please do not read this as a recommendation. It is hard work and not very satisfying to come back 2 weeks later only to find long threads of algae hanging off the legs. My plan it to head to the Toronto boat show and corner the sales people at any of the paint supplying booths and grill them on their paint solutions for aluminum boats because I suspect they do not have very good answers these days. It may be that smuggling paint across the border from the US is the only way to go.

David

I have a little bit of Trilux II T which is the last of the tin based antifouling taken off the market about 5 years ago. I use it from chine to waterline every 2nd year and probably have enough for one more application. Below the chines is still as painted 5 years ago.

In the US they have Interlux bottom paints with Biolux organic antifouling. Perfect for aluminum but as of last year anyway, not available in Canada (to David's point).

I have tried Trilux II (without the tin) but it is very soft and wears away very quickly.

Application of copper based antifouling (even once) is a bad thing.
Catherine Ann had copper based antifouling when we purchased her and I spent many long hours striping the entire bottom to bare aluminum. Fortunately (for the hull) the alloy of the Volvo outdrives was more reactive than the alloy of he hull, thus my outdrives are terribly pitted.

Interlux sells an industrial product called "coal tar epoxy". This is a two part paint that has no antifouling properties but is really tough. This is the base coat on my boat and even without an antifouling top coat works quite well. I ran like this for several years and found it relatively easy to scrub once or twice a year from waterline to chine.

You are absolutely right the only antifouling paint available in
Canada contains copper. Interlux's Tri-Lux II antifouling is
formulated for aluminum hulls and related surfaces. It is
necessary to build an epoxy barrier of 15 mils prior to the
application of antifouling to an aluminum hull. Our procedures are
as follows;


(UNDERWATER HULL)

- Wash aluminum surfaces with International 950 cleaner

- Sandblast Underwater Hull to an SSPC-SP-5 Standard

- Remove Soluble Salts from the surfaces with a product such as
Chlor*Rid DTS

- Prime the entire vessel with Intergard 269 (Epoxy Primer/Tie Coat)

- Build up thickness with Intergard 264 (Epoxy)
(until a min. of 12 mils dry is achieved overall)

- Prime with Intergard 263 (Epoxy Tie Coat for Tri-Lux II antifouling)

- Topcoat with 3 coats of Tri-Lux II antifouling


All epoxy's and antifouling are available at Parade Of Paints in Kingston
613-634-3083, and Chlor*Rid DTS is available at Stone Tucker Instruments
Inc. in Fonthill, ON 1-905-892-6142

Hope this helps

Best regards,

Corey Eggert
Paint Supervisor
MetalCraft Marine Inc.
349 Wellington Street
Kingston, ON
K7K 6N7

PH: 613-549-2561
Fax:613-542-6515
corey.e@metalcraftmarine.com




> Hey Corey,
>
> If you're not super busy, this fellow was wondering about a paint
> question.
> Can you respond to this.
>
> Em
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Forrkat@aol.com [mailto:Forrkat@aol.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 10:04 AM
> To: Emily.R@metalcraftmarine.com
> Subject: Aluminum boat bottom paint
>
>
> Good moning. I have stayed at Kingston Marina several times and have
> admired
> your aluminum boats, as I have an aluminum housecruiser.
>
> If ou don't mind, I have a question; what bottom paint do you use that is
> compatible with marine aluminum. I am only able to find paint that has
> copper in it.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Joe Forrest
>
> forrkat@aol.com
>

Now, having read all that, I may just get that copper off the bottom and apply the teflon wax I used on my last boat.....Doral Prestancia, and go with that. It worked very well and I had no growth on the hull.

When Interlux was forced to discontinue their Aluminum product undercoat I switched to "Aurora VS721 Bottom Wax"
I was never satisfied with the results.
Finally this year I switched to Interlux "Bottom Kote XXX". It did a good job of stopping plant growth and other marine creatures.

Brian Govan "Sioux"

I would agree with all the info from Metalcraft Marine, except that you have to remember that he is starting with new aluminum . . . . we have a lot of work to do, to get back to this condition. The sandblast surface spec is close to what you will get with careful application of a 60 grit sanding disc, if you want to do it by hand. The barrier coat is important and the reason for 3 coats of Trilux II is that it wears away very quickly, even in cool fresh water. It will need constant re-application

I tried the wax too . . . . it didn't work very well for me either.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news to Sioux, by Interlux XXX is copper based. I have no doubt that it sheds marine growth, but is now a huge cathode and your hull is the anode. You need to get every trace of this off the boat or your hull will suffer.

It seems that either Wax or Tri-lux II is the only choice for aluminum boats in Canada. I wonder what they do in Europe and other places around the world. There should be a more reasonable and effective product available someplace?.

Brian - Sioux