Enigmas keel and hull after cleaning. Showing poor antifouling surface that requires removal.
Seawater is rich in life. Even in the dark waters of a busy South Coast marina,
where sea toilets pump human waste directly into the fuel encrusted waters, and
the wind herds the flotsam, detritus and litter into scum encrusted corners of the
concrete quaysides, plant life and crustaceans not only survive but thrive.
In the late spring and summer when the sun light pierces deep into the warm
and shallow pools, the living soup of the sea ebbs and flows around
the hull of the boat, and millions of developing larvae are looking for a place
to call home.
It's a bit like the first week of term in any University town!
Mussels, barnacles and other microscopic organisms are desperate for a place
to put down their roots, all competing for space with seaweed spores and plant
life from every corner of the globe.
Plant life does not sound too dangerous to us land dwellers, who quite like
to keep a tidy garden full of herbacious annuals, but sea weed and marine plant
life is tough stuff. It grows on unhospitable rocks where it has to withstand
being pounded by surf, so its not something you can easily wipe off with a soft
cloth. The weed itself is home to a variety of wildlife. Tiny shrimp and crabs
that stroll around the underside of your boat munching away on the vegetation
as if they have grazing rights, and unfortunately these creatures are the most
innocous part of the story.
Enigmas keel and hull after cleaning. Showing poor antifouling surface that
requires removal.
Take the Cypris larva which has about thirteen days to find a nice place to
live or it faces starvation in its floating cocoon. Unless, that is, it can
manage to find a nice smooth area of boat to glue itself to. Within twelve hours
the little bleeder has created a little cone shaped shell of rock hard calcium
carbonate and there it remains, with its head against your hull and it's little
legs dangling in the water trying to kick the life out of anything it fancies
for dinner.
We call these things barnacles, and if you think that using your boat as its
home is taking liberties, wait until you hear this: The common barnacle does
not really get out much, what with being unable to survive outside of its dome
shaped house, so if it's feeling a bit randy it's not really possible to don
medallion and chest wig, and nip out to some dodgy club to chat the lady barnacles
up. As a result it doesn't bother with the laborious process of going out on
the pull, instead it just gets straight to the point, and projects a huge penis
from its shell which it then uses to probe around the neighbouring barnacles
until it finds an interested partner.
Of course there is the calcerous tube created by the Keel Worm (Pomatoceros
triqueter) that even goes to the trouble of building a door on the end
of his tunnel. Presumably this is so he can slam it in the face of any dodgy
double glazing salesmen or Jehova's witnesses, trying to sell him a copy of
'watchtube'.
Removing 'Enigmas' barnacles the hard way
If you are the proud owner
of a wooden boat you definately need to take pro-active steps to ward off the
hideous ship worm (Bankia setacea or Teredo worm) that munches through
wood with the same enthusiasm a drunkard hoofs down a kebab after closing time.
Thanfully we owners of modern GRP hulled boats can sleep soundly, safe in the
knowledge that even the marine woodlouse or 'Gribble' (Limnoria lignorum)
which despite its amusing sounding name is capable of reducing a wooden boat to
a worthless wreck in a matter of weeks, has no such appetite for resins and plastics.
So even the lushest sanctuary of marine life can do little to harm our man made
materials.
You would think therefore, that if the underside of your boat is teeming with
aquatic life, it should get the environmetalists enthusiastically frothing at
the beard, but this is not the case. Despite the fact that your boat is providing
the marine equivalent of a hedgerow, it is the very abundance of organic matter
that serves to create a drag factor of the sort normally designed into the parachutes
attached to aeroplanes on short runways. With little or no attempt to keep the
weed at bay, your yacht will lose so much speed that unless its blowing force
nine, the sails can't get you going any faster than minimum steerage speed and
the alternative is to use an engine that protests at the extra workload by smoking
like a traction engine and burning twice as much fuel; thus causing the environmentalists
to peer agressively over their round lensed spectacles at you. In addition,
even if the weed dies away, the calcerous growths of the barnacles and keel
worms serve to break up the water flowing along the boats hull causing cavitation
and drag, so that even after painting the roughened surface will reduce performance
noticably.
Well keeping your boat out of the water and only putting it in when you need
it is an option if you have a trailer sailer or RIB, but the sheer hassle of
launching and recovery can often cause the enthusiasm to wane enough so that, after
a while, even a visit to the local garden centre under orders from 'her indoors'
starts to become a more convenient option than standing up to your waist in
muddy cold water desperately trying to push the bows of your craft clear of the launch trailer
before the exuberant bubbling from the exhaust of your car dies to a deathly silence and you realise that there is a very good reason that RNLI launch tractors
are fitted with snorkel air intakes.
Assuming your boat is kept in the water then, it is imperitive that preventative
measures are taken to keep your old girls bottom clean.
Well here's a neat idea, invent a groovy underwater car wash and franchise it to the busiest boatyards and marinas in the UK. If you berth your boat in and around the Solent area you will not be too far away from one of the installations of this covenient technical solution. Of course if you berth your boat anywhere other than the Solent then you will be too far away from any of them for it to even be an option, but such is the comercial pressures of the modern world. The machine works using freshwater hydraulics to move the arms and brushes which spin around just like a car wash and, with the operator standing by to make adjustments to compensate for the shape of your individual hull, and because underwater weed and animal life relaxes when submerged, the brushes can sweep away the weed quite effectively.
Enigma on the Boatscrubber at Hamble
It is a really good system, very quick (It took just over half an hour to clean
'Enigma') and the advantages for racing sailors and the like are quite clear.
However it is not a cheap and cheerful solution, and if you only opt for a couple
of sessions a year it is hard to justify the costs when they are compared against
a cheap lift out. The boats bottom does still have to be painted (though not
as often) which means you have to factor in the costs of having her lifted out
occasionally.
Boatscrubber is a useful mid season measure but there is definately some peace
of mind gained by getting the boat out of the water and actually seeing that
your sea cocks are in good condition, your propellor still has all its blades
attached, and that the gentle grounding you experienced a few weeks ago has
not badly dented your keel.
This
traditional method of access to your undersides is often best done in the summer
as many of the busier boatyards do 'special offers' and the whole procedure
is provided at a much reduced price. You can enjoy the leisurely pace of
spending the high season ashore when everyone else is on the water, leaving you with the entire hard
standing to yourself. In additon to the untold advantages of not having to fight
over the hosepipe and guard your electrical socket with zeal and cunning normally
only witnessed when hyenas discover a fresh kill, there is also the weather
advantage. Take it from someone who for years lay on the cold hard ground of
a Yorkshire boatyard, shivering beneath his hull in late March each year, braving
snow, ice and rain to ensure the painting was completed before the season started
on April 1st.
Drying times are also greatly reduced in the height of the summer season. With
ambient air tempratures rarely falling below 15°C it is easily possible
to apply two coats of paint in one day.
The procedure of being craned out can be an emotional one. Staring up at the
underside of your dripping hull as she swings through the air, you hear the
yard hand cursing the rusting crane as its wheezing old engine shudders to a
premature stop leaving your pride and joy stranded in mid flight, raining down
the foul smelling sewerage from the hordes of microscopic tennants clinging
to their host. This nerve jangling experience is not enhanced by the crane drivers
mutterings about the availability of parts for the old wreck, and the creaking
of the threadbare slings that are drum taught against your hull.
Of course you get what you pay for and the modern boat yard travel hoist takes
care of any reliability issues, but in its place are a plethora of mindboggling
health and safety regulations including the wearing of hard hats, high visibility
jackets and steel toe capped shoes as if these items of British Standard Kitemarked
PPE would protect you from injury in the unlikely event that nine tonnes of
fibreglass yacht fell on your head.
In addition to these regulations your marina terms and conditions will doubtless remind you of the following:
You will not be allowed to antifoul whilst the boat is in slings,
You will not be allowed to use contractors unless they have been approved and
have the neccessary liability insurance,
You will not be allowed to make a mess, but you will also not be allowed to
dispose of your rubbish in the bins,
You will almost certainly not be placed anywhere near a power point or a hose
pipe despite the yard being completely empty, and if you do choose to use a
hosepipe your run off will not be allowed to cause pollution to the seawater.
(This of course is from either the paint coming off, or going on to a boat hull
which will in due course be afloat actually in the aforementioned seawater)
You are also likely, despite the yard being almost completely devoid of other
vessels, to be positioned right next to someone who is dry sanding their hull,
causing a rising dust cloud that would not be out of place in the Sahara and
is guaranteed to coat everything downwind with a rainbow coloured coating of
highly poisonous particles. Meanwhile, on the other side of you is the man pressure
washing the old antifouling off his hull (in direct contravention of boatyard
rule 5.7.3a) which if stood downwind of him will cause a speckling of your skin
severe enough to cause the entire queue at the boatyard cafe to move nervously
aside, and cause at least one concerned punter to phone the infectious diseases
clinic on your behalf.
Having got the boat out of the water, had the weed pressure washed off, painstakingly
scraped the remaining marine growth from the hull and cautiously removed the
most offfensive of the flaking lumps from last years coat without causing a
major pollution control incident, then you will be ready to paint.
Wander into any chandlers and the sheer choice of anti fouling treatments is
nothing short of disturbing. The number of colours available truly beggars belief,
especially when it is for a coat of paint which only the coastguard helicopter
pilot will truly be able to marvel at, as the winchman bravely plucks you from
the upturned wreck of your doomed vessel. However the only mood any colour of
this paint can create is a black one when you consider the price. Budget brands
abound of course, but trust me I have tried most of them and you get what you
pay for, so if you want it to work properly be prepared to spend the same on
a 2.5 Ltr tin of antifouling paint as you would on a decent meal for two, with
drinks.
A 2.5 Ltr tin manages one coat on 'Enigma' 29'6" hull as long as you add
a dab of thinners to the goopy bit at the bottom. You will get away with only
one coat if she is spending the winter ashore, but if she is afloat all year
round then unless you opt for at least two coats you will ensure that for at
least the last month before she gets lifted out, you will be the proud owner
of what Titchmarsh and Dimmock might describe as a 'wildlife garden'.
It's not finished there either, you will need brushes, rollers, gloves and masking
tape all of which will be used only once. Eye protection is a good idea, and
of course the application of a biocide based paint is a task that should not
be performed in lounge suits and expensive brogues.
Antifouling paint thinners is specialist stuff, and it is acetate based, so
for Pete's sake dont use it to get paint off your skin, as it burns like cheap
aftershave.
A coat of antifouling primer is required if you are changing antifouling
types, have taken the hull right back to the bare substrate, or are concerned
in any way about the quality of the surface of the old paint. It acts as a barrier
coat and helps the new paint to 'key' onto the old surface, something you should
definately consider if you do intend to use a boatscrubber or mid season scrub,
as the scrubbing will not only remove the fouling, but also take off any badly
keyed paintwork leaving your hull unprotected until the next paint job.
The annual lift out, scrub off, and anitfoul is the bane of the boat owners life, it's a dirty job but someones got to do it. So my advice is get a decent sized crew, kit them out with all the stuff they need, and then feign a bad back.
