Dear Steve, I have bought Your Cruising Encyclopedia & Mariners Weather Handbook from Captain Watt’s in London. I can only say they are a great life work’s to make a boat owner’s life easier with the right kind of knowledge – thank you. Also I met the owners of Condor while they were in Sydney Australia a few years ago – Skip and his wife. What a lovely couple and boat they had built in NZ to your philosophy and design.
I own a 50′ ex BOC open class yacht build in 1986 called Skoiern IV. She is built from aluminum. Because of the problems of toxicity today’s available anti-fouling are not effective without the tin content. I’m considering using a UK product called Copper Shield, using first a coating of epoxy as a primer to protect the hull, then apply the Copper Shield, which is a copper-rich anti-fouling that does not require redoing for ten years plus. My fear is the risk of using copper on an aluminum boat – is it safe? The company said yes it is. Since I would like to solve this problem once and for all, I’m inclined to try it. but I don’t want to find religion with a holy boat…I look forward to your comment, as I will need to redo the boat’s bottom soon. Kind Regards, and keep up the good work. – John
Hi John: Copper bottom paint is OK as long as there is an intact barrier, made for the job. Many of the commercial boats in the States are using a system which includes a barrier coat which acts as an anode, so the anode coat is used before the aluminum, in the case of a bare spot.
The main issue is to make sure the barrier coats are properly applied, are the correct thickness, and that the total paint system is from a single source with a history of this type of work – you do not want to be an experiment for them!
And then, when the bottom paint is abraided, and bare aluminum shows, when you repair this, you have to be sure the build-up prior to copper-laced paint is done correctly.
If you go this route let us know how it works out. – Steve
Posted by Steve Dashew (November 30, 1999)
