On Dec 4, 10:28 pm, Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
Has anyone experience with anti fouling paints for cruising sailboats
that are in the water 100% of the time in tropical waters. ...

I've had a bit of experience with this. Sadly, I don't know of any
really effective bottom paints for the tropics if you hope to take
more than six months between haul outs. We basically depend on
periodic mechanical removal of fouling. We've tried a copper/epoxy
hard coat system -- it sucked -- and several ablative copper paints.
I've had the paints professionally spray applied and have rolled them
myself. The ablatives, the best that money can buy, from Altex, Devoe
and Interlux (with and w/o anti-slime), all pretty much work the
same. We get a month or two with no growth. After that soft growth
that can easily be wiped off but which has serious performance
implications grows all over the hull and grass grows on the
waterline. As time passes the paint wears off all the sharp edges and
along the water line and we start getting shell build up there. By
about the six month period it seems that the paints have little anti-
fouling capability at all but they are soft so it is still easy to
remove the stuff that grows all over them. From that point on more
and more aggressive polishing is required and the only good news is
that the bottom will be pretty clean of paint when you are ready to
haul it and start over... Considering what a tin of top shelf anti-
fouling goes for these days the results I've gotten have been
extraordinarily disappointing.

-- Tom.