Antifouling paints on test


Seajet 034 Emperor PRICE: £115.65 (2.5lt) • £46.26/lt CONTACT: www.seajetpaint.com


POOLE HAMBLE (E) HAMBLE (W) Do we need antifouling at all?


Seajet Emperor 034, compatible with aluminium as well as GRP and wooden boats, attracted some fairly thick slime in the Hamble. It shed the slime easily, however, when wiped with a sponge. There was no weed growth in either location. Emperor performed better in Poole, where there was less tidal flow. It was easy to apply, two coats are recommended, and Seajet say it should last two seasons if a third, roller coat is applied.


Seajet 031 Samurai PRICE: £53.50 (2.5lt) • £21.40/lt CONTACT: www.seajetpaint.com


POOLE HAMBLE (E) HAMBLE (W)


This fouling took just four months to grow on the non-antifouled side of the panel


W


e left the reverse side of each board without antifouling,


along with a 20mm border between each block of paint. These areas acted as our control samples. The results from the back of


the board show unequivocally that it is worth using some form of antifouling: the waterline was covered with a juicy green weed, while deeper down, calcified worm casings as well as slime and masses of sea squirts – and even a good crop of mussels – were very firmly attached to the bare epoxy primer surfaces. On the front of the panels, dark slime and kelp had attached


Weed stuck fast to the bare primer grid between painted panels


themselves in a grid pattern to the borders between panels. We needed a scraper and pressure washer to remove them. Perhaps because of the close proximity of the antifouling paints, sea


squirts and shellfish stayed away from the bare epoxy strips on the fronts of the boards.


Seajet’s budget self-polishing antifouling, 031 Samurai, grew a thick layer of slime near the waterline, but it was less thick the deeper it was in the water. It grew a thicker slime in the Hamble than in Poole, but in both locations it wiped off easily with a sponge – a stiff brush being required to shift some of the Hamble waterline fouling. There was no green weed growth present in either Hamble or Poole. Two coats are recommended for a season.


Practical Boat Owner 569 January 2014 • www.pbo.co.uk PBO verdict T


he good news is that all the paints offered an improvement compared to the areas where no antifouling was present. There was also no shell growth on any of the


paints, unlike the control areas. International’s Micron Extra was the most effective paint, with only


a very small amount of slime present and no weed at all. The same company’s Cruiser UNO was less effective than Micron Extra, but was still a strong performer. FLAG’s Performance Extra paint also performed well, as did Boero Mistral Nf. Nautix’s paints were notably effective on slime, but less so on weed. Some paints – Seajet’s Emperor and Jotun NonStop in particular – were more effective in Poole than elsewhere, which demonstrates that for different areas of the country it can pay to ask local boat owners for their recommendations. We plan to expand our test next season to try a range of


antifoulings in a wider geographical spread around UK waters. If you could help us set up some test panels in your area, we’d love to hear from you. See PBO’s contact details on page 5.


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