T&T: Results of painting bottom with Hydrocoat/Trindad SR

[Rich Gano]

18 months ago, I painted my bare props (bronze) and shafts (Aquatmet) with
Interlux 2-part barrier coat and coated over that with a double coat of
Trinidad SR after chewing on them with 50-grit disks on my grinder.  The
outboard sides of my rudders were done with 2-part Duraplate over bare
bronze and likewise double-coated with SR.  The inboard sides were recoated
over existing SR which was in good shape.

The hull (wood) was coated with Hydrocoat (water-based ablative) over Micron
CSC (oil-based ablative).  Clean-up (especially cleaning Rich) was a snap
and done on site rather than at home with paint thinner, etc.

In-water maintenance for 18 months consisted of infrequent scrubbing by me
with a soft boat brush (at least twice, maybe three times over the 18
months).  The last two times have been within the last 60 days.

Use consisted mostly of a 2400-mile round trip up the Tenn-Tom and Tennessee
River and the usual local bay trips.

I hauled the boat today - being wooden, I don't like to go longer than this.
Rather than let the yard waste my money on a pressure wash, I elected to use
a stiff brush on the hull while the admiral played a hose across the areas I
scrubbed.  I was well satisfied with the results of the hour's labor; I was
NOT pleased last haul-out when they pressure-washed the hull.

The tips of the props (about 2 inches) and the inboard sides of the rudders
were patchy bare of paint in places.  The outboard sides of the rudders were
perfect, as were the shafts.  I suspect the slight toe-in of the rudders
causes a bit of cavitation or extra turbulence that eroded the paint there
in preference to the outboard sides.  This year, the inboard sides will get
two coats of Duraplate and two coats SR.

The hull in general is in extremely good shape.  The waterline area gets a
bit beat up with some areas of bare wood showing (maybe 1 inch wide by 6-8
inches long in three to five places per side), but there are no other areas
of paint surface coating failure bigger than a square inch or so in size
(just a few of them).  These areas will get a sanding with my
grinder-converted-to-sander and then several coats of Duraplate to allow me
to fair them into the surrounding bottom paint.

Overall, I am happy enough with my Hydrocoat/Trinidad SR combination in
these warm waters that I will use it again.  I especially like the ability
to scrub off a fair amount of Hydrocoat with a stiff brush (tantamount to a
good sanding) while the boat hangs in the slings at the wash rack before
being hauled to the maintenance plot.  I have thrice in 21 years of
ownership of this boat "wooded out" the bottom because of thick paint
coating failure, a fact of life with a wooden boat (maybe fiberglass, but I
don't know), and I do not want to do so again any time soon.  We'll see how
long this ablative trick works; it certainly is a lot thinner at this third
of four coating than hard paint like Trinidad SR.

Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42 #295)
Southport, FL