Grey Dove has been away from home for 12 years. During that time we have regularly slapped anti-fouling on her bottom, particularly necessary on the west of Scotland and here in France , especially up the oyster and mussel rivers like the Charente and Gironde.
Although modern antifouling is supposed to be self polishing a lot of it stays behind and it is very heavy. We estimated that the residual coats have accumulated to a mass in the order of 40 kilos. Given the hoops that I jump through to lighten the boat (trampoline foredeck, a thousand holes in the bunkboards, foam-filled doors and galley work-tops, single engine – hydraulic drives etc etc) this is unacceptable.
In addition to the weight issue, I am not getting any younger (surprise!) and the annual lift, scrub and paint is getting wearing (and tedious) not to mention the dramatically (extortionate) increasing cost of the paint so I have bitten the bullet and decided to epoxy the bottom with Copper Coat; a copper powder bearing two part epoxy, guaranteed for 10 years and known to last at least 15 if properly applied.
To enable this I had the bottom sand-blasted by the local shipyard. The photo shows Jean-Serge, the proprietor, using his 300 bar (yep...300!) pressure washer to remove the old paint. It was so powerful that the removed flakes were stinging me from 12 metres as I took the picture and he only had to use sand along the waterline.
I have been left with very little work to do in preparation, some sanding, filling the occasional chip with mastic, fairing and a wipe off with acetone. The hull will dry out over the winter and the new coating is scheduled to go on in April. As the finish will be smoother than ever before I am looking forward to some nippy sailing next year......