Anti-Fouling Bottom Paint
Bottom Fouling
 Anti-fouling bottom paint can help keep your boat's hull in good condition, prevent barnacle attachment and algae growth, and will help your boat move through the water faster and more efficiently.
Bottom fouling results from 3 primary causes:
- Marine life
Barnacles, zebra mussels, and other small marine critters attach themselves to your boat's bottom while it's sitting in its slip or at its mooring. These critters can multiply like rabbits, covering the boat's bottom quickly once they get started.
- Plants
Weeds and water plants can also attach themselves to the boat, most often near the waterline where there's plenty of sunlight.
- Algae Slime
Algae can form a gloppy, gooey mess on your boat's bottom, blooming rapidly and creating an environment that attracts other organisms. This creates a nasty, hard-to-clean bottom situation, and slows your boat tremendously when it's moving through the water.
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Does Your Boat Need Anti-Fouling Bottom Paint?
Not every boat necessarily needs anti-fouling bottom paint. Whether a boat would benefit from anti-fouling paint is determined by a couple of factors: The amount of time the boat spends in the water, and the particular marine environment the boat is kept in. If you keep your on a trailer and it's actually in the water only a few weeks a year, or if you only use it in fresh water, it probably doesn't need bottom paint. But if you keep your boat in salt water year-round, bottom paint is something you should consider.
Anti-Fouling Bottom Paint
Using quality anti-fouling bottom paint on your boat's hull can help prevent bottom fouling from forming in the first place, protecting the hull and saving you a messy clean-up job. Anti-fouling paint uses chemicals called biocides that are released gradually during the boating season to reduce or eliminate marine growth on your boat's underwater surfaces. Most anti-fouling bottom paints use cuprous oxide, and generally, the more cuprous oxide in the paint, the better it will protect your boat's bottom.
Aluminum Hulls and Bottom Paint
Nearly all anti-fouling bottom paint contains cuprous oxide (copper), combined with other chemicals, to provide this protective anti-fouling characteristic. Anti-fouling paints continaing copper should never be used on aluminum hulls. When these 2 metals are in contact with each other in the water, electrolysis corrosion will occur. A biocide-free silicone paint can be used on aluminum hulls.
Types of Anti-Fouling Paint
There are two main types of antifouling paint: Ablative and hard-finish antifoulingpaint. Ablative paint is suitable for sailboats and slower powerboats, while hard-finish paint is better for racing sailboats and faster powerboats.
- Ablative Antifouling Paint:
Ablative paint is a soft bottom paint that is designed to wear away as your boat is used. As the water moving over the boat's surface wears away the paint, fresh layers of biocide are continuously exposed, so that the anti-fouling characteristic is constantly refreshed as long as some of the paint remains on the boat's hull. Ablative antifouling paints can be applied over other antifouling paints, so that you don't need to remove the previous paint before applying a fresh coat. It can be useful to apply 2 or 3 coats when applying an ablative antifouling paint. Ablative paints work well in marine environments with high levels of marine growth.
The drawback to ablative paints is that, because it's such a soft paint, you will remove some of the paint whenever you scrub down the hull. Also, ablative paints will wear away faster from trailer rollers and bunks and in high-friction areas such as the rudder.
- Hard Finish Antifouling Paint:
These paints are not designed to wear off the way ablative paints do. If you frequently use your boat for high-speed motoring, or if you give the boat's bottom a good scrubbing after each use, a hard paint is probably your better choice. The hard antifouling paints start leaching out biocides on contact with the water, in a sort of timed-release fashion.
After a period of time, most often 6 months to a year, the paint has leached out all of its biocides, and a new coat of paint will be needed.
Hard antifouling paint builds up and needs to be removed before a fresh coat is applied.
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