On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:49:31 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Apr 13, 8:07 pm, Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
At the moment there seem to be three choices (1) Jotun self polishing
paint in various grades depending on boat speed; (2) Chugoku self
polishing, again in different grades and (3) a copper and epoxy mix
that used to be called "CopperBot" but I now believe has a different
name, that is supposed to last ten years or more.

Now, to cut to the chase. Does anybody have actual experience with
current anti fouling paints in tropical waters?

I put CopperBot on my boat in 2001 and then sanded it down and put
Devoe ABC on over it in 2002. Copperbot makes a nice barrier coat.
The good news was that it would stand up to serious sanding the bad
news was that it needed it all the time. Unless you dive the boat
weekly I wouldn't go that route.

This is what I had suspected, although an article in Practical Boat
Owner alleged that one boat hadn't scrubbed the bottom in ten years.

I watched a video of the stuff being applied and it is literally just
epoxy and copper dust. They even tell you to keep stirring the can
while you are rolling it on. It is also a minimum of four coats --
sort of a modern day copper sheeting.

I couldn't see how it could be effective UNLESS you scrubbed it pretty
aggressively on a frequent basis.

At the moment I am leaning toward the Jotun as I have used Jotun
before and it did what they said it would and secondly, a mate who is
in Cochin,India at the moment is using it and swears that he doesn't
have any growth at all. He has been at anchor in Cochin for about two
months now so I'll see what his boat looks like when he gets back.


Pretty much all the serious tropical
cruisers I know use ablatives and most get 18-24 months out of a multi-
coat application. I've used a couple of different Devoe products have
done a few seasons with Interlux. I'm currently into my second season
with Micron Extra. IME, the ablative copper paints work very well for
3-4 months and then get dramatically less effective. However, they
are really easy to clean. By the end of two seasons you'll typically
be down to almost no paint and any that's left will have very little
anti-fouling ability... The Interlux products are more expensive than
the Devoe stuff that I was getting in New Zealand but not notably
better.

-- Tom.

Devoe isn't available here, as far as I know and I have had extremely
bad experience with International paint - some people say because
International mixes the paint that is sold here in Thailand.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct email address for reply)