How to Bottom Paint your boat
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DIY Bottom Painting
Bottom painting your boat is really messy work. You can have it done by a boatyard, but that costs lots of money…hundreds of dollars and even up to $1000 in some places. It’s really tempting to try and do it yourself but let’s take a look at what is involved, both financially and personally.
Seriously, there are some health issues to consider, that’s how toxic bottom paint is. It’s nice if your considering DIY bottom painting your boat and your boat is brand new. However, if you are going to bottom paint your own boat and you’ve experienced some marine growth on it, well you’re in for a heck of a project.
First, you’ll have to clean the hull. That means renting a power washer and, if there’s lots of growth you’ll have to blast the hull with acid. Yikes! Don’t even think about doing this project without gloves, a respirator, and rubber gloves. And get some eye protection while you’re at it.
Then you’re going to have to sand your hull so it’s a bit rough so it’ll hold the bottom paint. Just go ahead and get an entire protective hazmat suit at this point. And make that a dual cartridge respirator.
Don’t forget a huge tarp for the entire work area. For applying the bottom paint, you’ll have tao get special industrial rollers because the paint is so toxic it’ll dissolve the actual rollers you would use for painting your home.
Several coats will be needed, as well as tons of drying time out of the water. Plan accordingly!
Why Bottom Paint?
If you don't bottom paint, you'll have to haul it out and clean it every time
If you are going to keep your boat in the water anywhere in the South, you should consider bottom painting your boat. It will grow a skirt in no time, followed by stiffer growth underneath and then barnacles that are very tough to scrape off. To prevent all this marien growth, what you need is a biocide, and that’s what bottom paint provides. It’ll stop the barnacles, plants and algae from attaching to your hull. You won’t have an embarrassing skirt of growth and there won’t be any bumpy garden of barnacles on your hull.
There are three basic forms of marine growth that can live on your hull of you don’t have bottom paint or if you don’t haul the boat out after every use. There’s shell, weed, and slime. Shell would be barnacles and zebra mussels. Slime would be algae.
Bottom paint contains anti-fouling paint, which releases toxic substances to kill the growth. The substances are released slowly over time and when the release stops, it’s time to bottom paint your boat again.
Bottom paint will protect your hull from growth. A knobby, bumpy hull covered in growth reduces fuel efficiency and even makes it harder to maneuver your boat. You can’t even go as fast with growth all over your boat’s bottom. It seems impossible but yes, little bumps on your hull can cause you to run slower and to use more gas.
Even if your boat is in the water only part of the year, you’ll need bottom paint.
Bottom Paint, What’s In It?
Back when boats were wooden, sailing ships from hundreds of years ago would coat the hull in copper. That must have been beautiful. Granted, bottom paint isn’t beautiful, and boat owners are always trying to hide the bottom paint carefully under the water line so nobody knows the difference. Boat owners love that look of a new boat…pure gelcoat and no bottom paint.
Nevertheless, boat owners have to find a way to stop growth on the bottom of their boats. Unless you haul your boat out every time you use it, and clean it thoroughly, things will begin to grow. Most people go with bottom paint…but what’s in it?
Well, Tributyl tin was used in bottom paint in the 1960s but that was outlawed in the 1988 because it wasn’t so good for marine life. Too bad, because that stuff was extremely effective.
After Tributyl tin was outlawed, they started putting copper in the bottom paint. Now that’s under scrutiny, but hasn’t been outlawed. Bottom paint containing some sort of copper compound is the most popular type of bottom paint these days. The more copper in your paint the better because that means it’ll be a stronger biocide. Cuprous oxide, a copper compound, is very common in bottom paint. There’s another copper compound called cuprous thiocyanate, which is not as effective.
Now you can also get copper-free biocides in your bottom paint. There’s one that uses a zinc pyrithione biocide. The brand is Pettit Vivid Free.
ECONEA is another alternative to copper bottom paint. It’s metal-free but has only been around for a few years so there aren’t many reports on it yet.
There also water-based bottom paints. Cleanup is easy, you can paint indoors, and it’s much lower toxicity.
If you use your boat every day, you can get bottom paint without biocide. It’s just a super slick paint and the stuff just slides off when you run your boat.
Other than your biocides, you can opt for slimeacides, which are popular additions to bottom paint, too. Self Employment Tax Irs Tax Brackets IRS form 941
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