Well I remain totally amazed by my boat-it was antifouled spring 2005-I bought it July 2005 moved it onto Crinan Canal for about two weeks then on to Loch Ness where it remained until September 2006-probably three summer months in the sea.Since September 2006 it has been in the sea without a clean or antifoul..

Today I beached it expecting a nightmare-apart from a lot of slime and a growth of mussels around the rudder stock and on bottom of keel-absolutely nothing!

However a discussion with local crofter/fisherman confirmed my view that mooring is close to a large freshwater river which discharges vast quantities of fresh water into the Loch-you can see it layering around the boat.As a result well known locally that fouling is minimal.

Phil

Coppercoat - my Vancouver 28 is the second boat to which I have applied and it works as well in the Solent as it did in Kinsale.  Bear in mind however that although the deep copper colour of the new application looks good, the antifoul does not work until your bottom turns green as it is the cuprous oxide and other copper salts that do the work, not the pure metallic copper.  This may mean a couple of quick scrubs in the first year of use.  And I have found the Coppercoat people very helpful. They also told me that is is magic against slugs and that there may be a horticultural market here!

Alan.

If you can alternate between salt water and fresh (not very practical for most of us) any weed that grows in one type of water seems to fall off in the other as they are specific to their usual environment.

My brother used to live aboard a motor torpedo boat up river of London, he only had her out of the water once in many years (she was a nightmare to slip as she was very fragile when not fully sopported by water). He put black varnish on, basically thin tar. Weed would grow but every summer he came out to sea for a few weeks holiday and the weed vanished, she would just start to grow salt water weed which then fell off once he took her back up the Thames.

Maybe us East Coasters could leave our boats in Haybridge basin for a few days every now and then but itis hardly a simple solution.

My yacht Tiki has not needed anything other than a pressure wash for 15 years now!  I think they used to call it 'Copper Bot' then.  It just works a treat ... no problems at all.

Re two boats in the same marina with same a/foul yet having different fouling.

Can I suggest Sunlight!

Parked in a marina same part of the boat gets the sum each day and this encourages growth.

If your parked  in the shade of a bigger boat then you could have quite a difference.

Being a poor mooring type myself I find that around August with Long daylight and the water tempreture is at it's max, I always have to start scrubbing my rudder which is exposed to the sunlight.

It's the same every year

By the way I use International VC offshore - magic stuff! 

I agree that light is the biggest problem, my boat also has a stern hung rudder and nothing works on it. For next year I am going to make a weighted skirt for out of an old sail cover to put on on the marina berth.

The two yachts I mentioned earlier, however, were  Sea School boats, berthed side by side and both out and in use for most of each week.

Well 7 weeks in & my boat is so badly slimed & mudded that it has lost 1/2 knot under pwer.

God knows what I'm going to use next year, but its sure going to be poisonous!

I had my boat jetwashed off 2 weeks ago. It had been in since April and it had a tremendous amount of thick slime and barnacles on it.   One thing I noticed was that the antifoul looked as good as the day I had put it on. Usually after 6 months and a jetwash I expect to see the antifoul getting a bit thin in places.

I have used Blakes Cruiser Performer for the last 4 seasons and this is the worst season so far for build up of fouling. 

I did a test in still water before the jetwash at full engine revs and afterwards. Almost a Knot and a half difference.   

One problem I had before the jetwash was in very light winds when I wanted to tack.  Getting her nose through the wind onto the other tack was becoming increasingly difficult.

I guess with the onset of winter with less light and slightly cooling water, there may be a little less growth etc.  I'm staying in for another few weeks so I will be interested to see what happens.

My Seahawk (moored in North Wales) was hauled-out on Friday after being in the water since April and no mid-season scrub. I used Cruiser Uno this year and was slightly disappointed to see a fairly thick coat of green slime covering the underside which became more weed-like around the waterline. However, not a single shelled-creature so in that respect it worked well but not quite as well as previous years. Incidentally, I always use nothing more than waterproof grease on the prop shaft and propeller to repel growth and again the results were great with only a single barnacle on the prop and a little slimy everywhere else. All the slime disappeared easily after an hour with the jet wash.

We moor in an estuary , dry out. We only put one thin coat of anti-foul on and give a scrub in August, not much to remove. When she comes out in October there's no weed, only fifity or so barnacles and we scrub again before it all dries out. So almost ready for next year!

Others moored in areas where there is higher percentage of fresh and they're afloat all the time have horrendous growth even with anti-foul. Very odd!

Downj to what you can get away with