The secret to a clean bottom is plenty of layers of quality paint, custom
additives, and being under way much of the time.

It's been over a year since I painted "Cut the Mustard's" bottom and
it still looks almost as good as the day she was launched.

I used two gallons of Trinidad SR to which I added a couple little
bottles of tri-butyltin (banned from factory paint for sale in the USA)
for each gallon. This is now sold in hardware stores as a mildewcide
for house paints but also works great on hard bottom paint where it
gets into the matrix and only leeches out as the paint wears or is
scrubbed from time to time. Sort of a time-release capsule of
toxicity, don't cha know.

Two gallons gave me three coats everywhere and five or six coats on
the rudder, waterline area and keel near the bottom and forward
part.

I expect about two more years for a total of three and this in
high-growth, warm tropical water conditions. I'm convinced that
being underway a good deal of the time is a major factor in keeping
the paint clean as organisms whiz by so fast they simply don't have
a chance of taking hold. Show me a barnacle that can grab hold of
a yacht cruising past at seven or eight knots and I'll show you one
on steroids.

CN