Monthly Archives: January 2024

The Low Down on Coppercoat Antifouling: Part II

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In our last blog post we started the process of preparing our boat for new antifouling.  We typically used paint, but technology has changed and the better choice for protecting your boat’s bottom is coppercoat.  We ran into some problems and the original blog post grew too long so we broke it up into a few posts.  Here is part II.

Coppercoat

We ordered the coppercoat directly from the NZ coppercoat contact.  We ended up ordering 20 one liter kits which contain part A and B and the copper) and an additional (2) one liter cans for us (for any future repairs).  The reason we orderd one liter cans is because the coppercoat has a very specific application process and ordering it in larger quantities like 10L or 20L cans makes it very difficult for the team to apply it fast enough before it sets. You only get about 20-30 minutes to apply while constantly stirring your paint tin.

First the team, and yes, I mean “team” as 5 Norsand guys bring the supplies.  They set up a make shift table to lay everything out.  The 20 kits (each has 3 parts), 15 buckets, 15 paint trays, 15 rollers, 5 small rollers, tons of rags, turps, and gloves.  So much plastic.  The Coppercoat sets so quickly that they cannot reuse the buckets, trays, or rollers for more than a few coats.  Everything moves at warped speed.

The preparations continue as the team (Aaron, Josh, Conor, Ian, Luke) tape off our saildrives, rudder bearings, transducers and other vital parts that can’t be covered in coppercoat and need protection.

The Application

The boat is washed down with ISO to remove all dust particles and then the magic begins.

Our chemist, Josh begins the mixing process.  He is dedicated to mixing each kit and keeping the painter’s trays mixed so the Coppercoat doesn’t set too quickly. Aaron (far left) is the yard manager and is supervising before starting the painting process.

The 5 guys work straight through lunch for over 5 hours applying 5+ coats, evenly, consistently, and professionally along our hulls.  It was exhausting work but they powered through and completed the job!  We were so pleased that we had a little happy hour celebration under the boat.

The first coat (top), the 3rd coat (middle) and the final coat (still wet).

I must be honest, I am not a fan of the color (copper) but I am even less pleased with what the color will look like once it spends 4-6 months in the salt water and oxidizes. And this is the permanent color for the next 10 years.  These are not our boats (obviously), but it will give you an idea of what Coppercoat looks like once it has oxidized in the ocean.

Prop Speed

The coppercoat sets as we are finishing up a few other boat projects.  One of the final projects is preparing the saildrives and props.  We sand them down, apply a barrier coat to the sail drives (the white paint), sand down the props one more time. Then it is time to apply prop speed which helps prevent growth and corrosion on the sail drives and props.  The bright yellow sure clashes with our copper bottom – oh well.

Activating the Coppercoat

It seems so wrong, but this is the process.  The yard comes in a few days before we splash to burnish (sand down) our beautifully painted Coppercoat.   Jamie uses 320 grit sand paper to activate the copper – but it was really hard to watch them burnish the new bottom job.

And that is the Coppercoat process.

Did you miss Part I of “The Low Down on Coppercoat Antifouling?”  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post started in early November and finished around the end of November.

The Low Down on Coppercoat Antifoul: Part I

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One of the most expensive boat maintenance projects is the bottom paint.  For the last 13 years we have been using Sea Hawk Island 44 bottom paint which requires a new application, hauling the boat out every 2 years, and endangering the oceans we love.  The paint is expensive, the sanding and prep are expensive and the haul out is expensive.  but it was a necessary evil. That is until we decided to go with coppercoat. 

Coppercoat

Coppercoat is considered a more environmentally responsible choice for antifouling.  It is a combination of a solvent free water based two part epoxy resign and high purity (99%) copper (it is not paint).  Each liter of resign is packed with 2 kilos of ultra fine copper, the maximum allowed by law, making it the strongest copper based antifouling available.

This product is tin free, non-leaching and much kinder to the ocean than conventional self-eroding anti foul paints.  The complete treatment has been approved by Health and safety in UK and EU and complies with International Maritime Organization.

Benefits 

Even though the initial outlay of money is more expensive than one time haul out and bottom paint application, it lasts for 8-10 years.  So, that is one application vs 5 applications.

It is a lot more environmentally friendly, leaves a smooth surface, and requires the same if not a little less maintenance.

And its repuation and claim shows excellent results.

How does Coppercoat work?

Once in the water, the ocean attacks the exposed pure copper, causing the formation of cuprous oxide. This highly effective anti-fouling agent deters growth until the surface degrades further to become cupric hydrochloride. This final copper form is highly unstable, and is washed away by the movement of the yacht, thereby removing any accumulating silt or slime. This automatically reveals a fresh copper-rich surface whereby the process recommences.

Here is a condensed version of the process:

  1. Sand the bottom of the hull down past the barrier coat
  2. Apply new barrier coat or primer
  3. Sand primer
  4. Clean with MEK to remove all particles 
  5. Apply Coppercoat (5-6 coats in one sitting)
  6. Sand to activate coppercoat

Primer / Barrier Coat

We went round and round with what type of primer to use.  There are several choices and frankly I am not sure there is a clear proven “winner” or better choice.” 

Choice 1 – Water Based Epoxy

Several cruisers that we know used a water-based, solvent-free epoxy primer (such as Hemple).  Their thought process was that the water-based expoxy primer would stick better to the water-based coppercoat.  Makes complete sense and is very logical.  The problem is that these types of primers do not go on flat.  They create peaks and valleys which then have to be sanded down making it very difficult to get a smooth surface which is required for the coppercoat application.  In addition, they are almost twice as expensive as solvent-based primers.

Choice 2: Interprotect Epoxy

The Norsand boatyard recommended Interprotect High Performance Epoxy Primer which is a solvent-based epoxy primer that has been in the marine industry for over 10 years.  The application process is proven to be effective, is applied evenly, and adheres to coppercoat .  The downside is that it requires two weeks to “off-gas” before the coppercoat can be applied.  You know the saying…time is money?

Choice 3: Coppercoat Barrier

The NZ contact for Coppercoat had his own version of primer which he recommended, CK4261 Ceramic Barrier Coating.  However, the yard has had poor results with this primer and recommended we use Interprotect.

I also contacted Coppercoat headquarters, Europe and asked for their advice.  I gave them the pros and cons of all three variations.  They said the good news is that coppercoat will stick to anything.  But the bottom line was “use what the yard is comfortable with as they are doing the application and have to stand by the end result.”  That resonated a lot with me.

Primer Winner

We ended up using Interprotect (what Norsand recommended) 27L of Part A, 9L of Part B and 4L of thinner.  Ian and Conor applied 6 coats with the first three being white and then they added pigment to make the last 3 coats a light gray.

The overall effect was actual rather nice. 

Final Adjustments to Previous Repairs

Once the paint dried we found a few areas that needed more filler.  Look for a slightly darker color and or indent in the photos.

It is hard to find these problems when the boat is white and gray but now that it is all one color we could see the imperfections.  So, they get filled (wine colored paint), sanded, and recovered in barrier coat.

There is too much for one blog post so tune in for The Low Down on Copper Coat Antifoul Part II coming up next.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occured around mid-November.  In our last blog post we take Sugar Shack down to the bare bones.

Bare Bones: A Dirty Job

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Time to get the boat ready for many projects which means taking her back to the bare bones which is a very dirty job.

Preparing Our Bottom

The first thing we did was pressure wash or waterblast the bottom of the boat.  This knocks off the first layer of muck that might have accumulated since our last cleaning.  Then the sanding begins and this is a dirty job!

Norsand Boatyard assigned Jamie, a 19 year old laborer to the task.  He worked very hard removing our bottom paint over 4.5 days. Lucky for him we only had 2 layers of bottom paint and then the primer to remove.  Had we done this 3 years ago he would have had to get through 20 years of bottom paint, layered over and over itself.  It takes Jamie about one full day to do half of the hull.

Jamie sands the top layer of black, then blue, then the army green barrier coat to get to the white/grey shown below.

Not a Good Sign

Two years ago we sanded down the bottom to the original barrier coat.  However, this time we sanded down further.  We have never sanded down this far and several things shocked and dismayed us!  

The first thing we discovered was that we have a few small areas on each bow with osmosis!  Basically water engress which is never a good thing.  We will certainly have to address this and repair it before we apply the new primer for the coppercoat.

Repairs to the Bones

In order to properly fix the osmosis areas Ben comes in to grind the fiberglass back to a healthy state.  I absolutely hated to see him grind out the fiberglass, but it is what you have to do. 

Ben grinds out every spot, hairline crack, and problem area.  Then meticulously fills them, sands them, and fills and sands them again.  Because our boat was made with vinyl luster that is what he used to fill all the areas in (as opposed to epoxy).

Filler is added to all of the areas and then sanded down.  In some instances he had to go back multiple times to add more filler in order to get the proper results.

Losing Our Minds

For the past 13 years Matt and I have been baffled by the starboard waterline.  For some reason, the waterline on the inside of the starboard hull was always lower which would indicate there is too much weight on that side of the boat.  So, we were constantly moving things to the center of the boat or to the port side to raise the water line.  

Little did we know that the boat was not unevenly weighted down.  The waterline was way off!  In fact it was 3-4″ shorter than its sister side!  What the heck?  So we borrow a digital laser level from the yard.  Matt sets it up where the front of the bow and that back of the boat are even and then draws a line between the two.

It is rather remarkable how uneven both sides are.  We think the original owner used a string and when pulled tight dips in the center.  This would explain how the bow and the stern were even but the center dips into a low “U.”  The bottom two photos show you the exact same spot on port and starboard — see the difference?

The good news is it can easily be fixed.  We will mark the new waterline and sand the gelcoat to match the bottom.

Removing the Daggerboards

In the 13 years that we have owned Sugar Shack we have never removed our dagger boards.  We love to use them, but why remove them?  Well for one thing they are stupid expensive, like $8000 euro each!  But we needed to sand off the bottom paint and apply our coppercoat – so out they came.

We used the spin halyard to hoist them and with Matt on the ground and me on the wench we slowly got each board to the ground.  These suckers are HEAVY and huge!  They measured 15′ tall.

If you dig deep enough you will find more problems.  We found a few issues with the dagger board casings.  We stuck our faces below the hole and looked up and to our surprise we found osmosis inside.  Unfortunately there is not much we can do as it is a very tiny and narrow space prohibiting tools from getting up in there.  We do make small repairs at the opening (right photo) as far up as we can go.

On the port rudder shaft there are two small repairs that we have to make. One is a crack at the opening of the casing (top photo) and the other is a bubble that sticks out enough to mark the shaft.

In upcoming blog posts we strip all of the graphics (stripes, logos, designs) off the boat.  The cover photo is when Sugar Shack is truly bare bones.

Frankly, I am surprised at all that we found once we took our boat down to the bare bones.  It was a truly dirty job in my ways than one, but certainly worth it to get her back to tip top shape.  Now we are ready to being the coppercoat process.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  The events in this blog post occured in early November.  In our last blog we share what Life is Like on the Hard.