Chuck Gould wrote:
dene wrote:

Find out of Regal used vinylester resin in the layup. If they did, you
probably don't need a barrier coat.

Will do!

I don't get down to boat on the Columbia, so I need to ask whether
Kalama is still in the tidal section of the river. If it is, bottom
paint will be particularly important.

If Kalama is further upstream, there probably still isn't enough steady
current to prevent bottom funk from getting a grip.

I should have been more specific. The boat is stored at a fully
enclosed boathouse near Hayden Island. There is no sun exposure and
some current and tidal effect. However, the location is 80 river miles
from the ocean. I live in Kalama, near Longview. Boat is rarely
moored here.

Do this, and convince yourself one way or the other: Go down to your
new slip, and take a look at the floats and pilings below the
waterline. If you don't find any plants or animals growing on the
pilings, etc, (a very unlikely result of your inspection), you probably
won't collect any hair or mollusks on your hull stored in the same
location. On the other hand, if the local underwater flora and fauna
are hardy enough to live on a scummy old creosote pile they will have
problem migrating to a nice, clean fibergalss hull. In many cases, the
bottom paint isn't so much about keeping stuff from attaching as it is
sloughing stuff off underway.

Will do! Thanks!!

$1400 is a whole lot of money, even for a boatyard, to charge for
painting a 24-foot boat.
Ask around about "winter specials", it isn't unusual to get bottom
paint in the winter time for
$20-30 a foot, including haulout. Or, pay for the haulout, wreck a set
of clothes, expose yourself to some truly nasty chemicals, and paint it
yourself for maybe $8-10 a foot. Good bottom paint is very expensive.
The labor required to scrape away an entire zoo with a firm grip on a
hull that should have been painted is even more expensive.

They are touting a premium job. At this point, I'm inclined to go the
winter without and then evaluate when I pull it out for the annual.

Thanks for the advice. Hope to participate more in this forum, after
the election. :

-Greg