Gear Tests

The Search for an Effective and Environmentally-Safe Antifouling

What are the other options?

The perfect antifoul will stop the pests from fouling our hulls but leave them to live in peace on the rocks nearby.

As I said at the outset, the perfect solution to the antifouling problem is one which does no harm. Conventional antifoulings (including Coppercoat) work by poisoning sealife. Surely, by this stage in our technological evolution mankind ought to be able to come up with a safer method of preventing micro-organisms from setting up home on our hulls?
As in all things, prevention is better than a cure; so rather than poisoning the creatures which attach themselves to our yachts what we need to do is find a certain something which will persuade them that they don’t want to live with us.

We’re not the only ones

Happily, yotties are not the only ones looking for a solution to this problem. The accumulation of weed and crustacea on a ship’s hull can increase its drag by up to 60% (according to various sources) and the drag increase has been shown to decrease speeds by up to 10%. Since the shipping companies don’t want their ships to go slower, the engineer will step up the engine revs – with a resultant increase in fuel consumption of up to 40%. Besides contributing hugely to the cost of shipping, increased fuel consumption also adds to the size of a shipping company’s carbon footprint; and if you’ve ever watched a ship trailing a scarf of smoke across the sky you will know that their footprints are already far too big.

No smoking, please. (This one isn’t even underway – he’s anchored – yet he’s still burning down the sky.)

(According to International – who, it should be noted, are keen for us to agree that poisoning the sea is preferential to poisoning the air – “The world’s fleet uses 350 million tonnes of fuel annually, emitting some 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 and over 10 million tonnes of SO2.”)

If the shipping industry had been banned from using tributyl tin when we yotties were denied its use, more than 20 years ago, then the problem of finding a safe antifouling would surely have been solved much sooner; because, as we have seen, they simply cannot afford NOT to find a solution! As it is, the problem appears to have been shelved and it is only now that we are beginning to see the first fruits of lateral thinking.

Sounds good

One of the most interesting deterrent solutions to the antifouling problem is ultra-sound.
Blue & Green Marine explain the physics of the system in the following way:

The ultrasonic transducers create a finely tuned pulse of ultra high frequency sound waves in the water surrounding the hull. These waves cause cavitation within the cell walls of the single-celled organisms that form a layer or ‘bio film’ around all objects immersed in water. The fierce cavitation disrupts the cells’ structure. … With the algae unable to develop, the first link in the food chain is removed and larger, more complex organisms – slime, weed, worms, shellfish – are unable to colonise.

Yes, that’s the sort of thing I had in mind. And the manufacturers assure us that no contaminants or pollutants are used or created, and the ultrasonic pulses are harmless to fish and inaudible to marine mammals.

Rival manufacturer Ultrasonic Antifouling make similar claims for their product. As they also say, You will only install this once. And you won’t get covered in paint when you do it!
Good point. With an effective antifouling system in place one might never need to slip the boat again. Think of the money and the hassles that that would save!

Off the grid – every drop of sunshine counts, and so the solar panels have been moved to positions of maximum advantage.

Of course, the problem with ultrasound is that it uses power – and power is a thing which is generally in short supply aboard a self-sufficient yacht, making its electricity from the wind and the sun.
Ultrasonic Antifouling say that their Ultra 10 Series I system uses a maximum of 0.7 amps when it’s running off the ship’s batteries. Aboard Mollymawk we would need the Series II system, for boats over 10 metres in length. This is said to use a maximum of 1.1 amps, which works out at 26.5 amp-hours per day. To generate this amount of electricity would take five hours when our solar panels are charging at 5 amps, or half that time when the sun is blazing down from on high and they’re really kicking out the juice.
To put it another way – Ultrasonic Antifouling’s system would use the same amount of power, in a 24 hour period, as my lap-top would consume in 6 hours. This may not sound too much if you’re wired into a marina, but if you live “off the grid” you will know that it is somewhat unrealistic to expect to be able to provide this amount of “spare” power on a daily basis. There are days, when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, when neither Caesar nor I can use our computers for more than an hour. The idea of topping up the batteries by running the engine would obviously be counter productive. There’s no point in robbing Peter to pay Paul; if we’re trying to live a clean green lifestyle there’s no point in burning fossil fuels in order to safeguard the sea.

Blue & Green claim that their system draws only an average of 0.06 amps (60 milliamps). Now that’s more like it! But note that we are not comparing like for like, because whereas one manufacturer talks about the maximum power usage the other is talking about an average.

So why haven’t we tried it yet?
Mainly because it’s very expensive. Blue & Green don’t seem to give prices on line, but Ultrasonic Antifouling’s Ultra 20 series II system costs more than £1,000. Before we find that kind of money we need to know, for sure, that the system is going to work.

If anybody out there has first-hand experience of ultra-sound antifouling, we would be very pleased if you could send us your verdict (using the comment box), and we will post it here for other readers to see.

The natural approach

One approach to the problem of antifouling is to take a look at the professionals. How do whales and dolphins and fish manage to avoid collecting passengers? Come to that, why aren’t barnacles themselves covered in green slime? Why doesn’t seaweed adhere to corals and sponges and so forth?
Turning that question on its head, why is that boats and other non-living objects do attract fouling?

Why aren’t dolphins covered in weed and barnacles?

The answer seems to be that inanimate objects attract a layer of small organic molecules which are ever present, in varying quantities, in sea water. Within 24 hours of having been immersed, the underside of the boat is coated in polysaccharides and proteins. These, which we think of as the building blocks of our diet, are actually supper in their own right for bacteria and phytoplankton (microscopic algae), and so they take their places at the table. After about a week, the bacteria and phytoplankton form a biofilm coating the entire hull; and, of course, they in turn attract other organisms to attend dine. Next to join the feast are larger micro-algae and finally, when these have got themselves established, we see the arrival of the more annoying guests: the barnacles, oysters, ascidians, sponges, bryozoans, hydrozoans… and, eventually, the skeleton shrimps and other small creatures which inhabit these utterly fascinating but very tiresome zoo-forests.
The place to break the chain is right at the first link… if only we can.

Attempts to emulate the abilities of our animal cousins are called biomimetics. So far as antifouling methods are concerned, the animals have two techniques: they either exude a chemical which inhibits hitch-hikers or else they possess a skin which is unsuitable for colonisation.
One obvious way of being unsuitable is to be too slippery – but it is far from being the only means. Sharks are not at all slippery. On the contrary. And yet you don’t see sharks covered in algae.

Sharklet

The US Naval Surface Warfare Centre estimates that “bio-fouling reduces vessel speed by up to 10 percent. Vessels can require as much as a 40 percent increase in fuel consumption to counter the added drag. For the US navy, that translates into roughly one billion dollars annually in extra fuel costs and maintenance” – so they’re pretty keen to find an effective solution to the problem; and they seem to think that shark skin just might fit the bill.

I can hear you thinking, “What are they going to do? Mix it into their paint? Or are they going to glue it on like wallpaper? And won’t the shark preservation people be upset…?

Did you ever see a shark looking like this?

Shark skin consists of microscopic overlapping plates – so the American researchers simply copied the pattern. According to them, this imparts “a 77% reduction in microfouling settlement”.
Sharklet is currently being tested by the US navy and one day, perhaps, we will all be able to take advantage of their discoveries.

Sponge

Whereas mobile forms of marine life seem to depend largely on being unsuitable for settlement, more static species tend to employ repellents. Seemingly, the most effective natural biocide is something called 3,4-dihydroxybufa-20,22 dienolide. It’s derived from the poison of the common toad, Bufo vulgaris, and it’s over 100 times more effective than TBT at preventing fouling.
On the whole, it doesn’t sound very environmentally friendly, even if it is totally natural…
Happily, deterrent solutions to fouling don’t have to be toxic – they don’t have to kill – they just have to taste nasty.

One company which has spent many years researching non-toxic repellents is Poseidon. They commenced work in this arena in 1987 when they began to study any natural compounds which displayed repellent activity against mosquitoes, sharks, or fouling invertebrates. Eventually they established a chemical library containing several thousand natural compounds, and amongst these one of the most promising, so far as we are concerned, was a substance derived from a soft coral called Juncea juncea.

Poseidon has now developed a paint which is based on the active compound exuded by the coral, and they are said to be on the point of releasing a product which will be suitable for us to daub on our hulls. We look forward to finding out more about it.

Bad ideas

Just because a product is effective in inhibiting the growth of weed and barnacles that doesn’t mean we ought to be putting it into the sea. Indeed, it goes without saying that most of the things which kill weed and barnacles are things which we should NOT be putting into the sea.

Is that TBT you’re wearing still, or could it be something even nastier? (Whatever it is, it seems to be effective. Not a barnacle in sight.)

In ye very olde days ye Phoenician sailors used arsenic and sulphur.
The first proprietary paints, produced in the 19th century, employed arsenic and mercury – just to be extra sure, I suppose. Coming more up to date, some friends of ours used to mix tetracycline into their antifouling. Quite apart from the damage this may have done to the environment it probably hasn’t done much for the effectiveness of the drug.

We need to be careful to ensure that the new concoctions on offer are not worse, even, than TBT.

According to one report:

The sedative medetomidine [used in veterinary practice] has proved effective at inhibiting fouling and is now being trialled by the EU as an ingredient for the antifouling paints of the future. However, Research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has shown that high concentrations of this substance can have an impact on the marine environment.

Well, I guess it stands to reason that a drug used for sedating animals would have an effect on animals… Seemingly, it prevents barnacle larvae from attaching themselves to vessels, but when the Swedish research team fed it to rainbow trout, cod, turbot, stickleback and salmon they found that it made the fish paler.
While the paleness itself isn’t harmful, said the researcher, functioning pigmentation is very important for a fish’s camouflage, communication and UV protection.
Fish which had been brought into contact with the sedative were also shown to be slightly less active – now there’s a surprise! – and to have less of an appetite.
Blood sugar content and liver size are also shown to be reduced while the fish are under sedation, and a detoxifying enzyme in the fish’s liver is affected.

In case you’d forgotten…

We all know what tributyl tin has done to the environment. A broad spectrum algicide, fungicide, and insecticide, TBT was first used in antifoulings in the 1960s. Within ten years it had already been linked to

high mortalities of oyster larvae. Research showed that a concentration of just 2.4 nanograms of TBT per litre is needed to produce sexual changes in dog-whelks, leading to sterility.

Whales, dolphins, and people too, can be affected by toxins in the food chain.

Not too worried about the shellfish? Well TBT is also toxic to larger forms of life, including dolphins, whales, seals, and humans. It is been found in various members of the marine mammal families in the United States, south-east Asia, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. These animals have absorbed the TBT via the food chain. Needless to say, if they can be poisoned from eating fish, so can we.
TBT can be broken down – but only in the presence of oxygen. When it accumulates on the seabed its decomposition is slower and it remains toxic for several years.

TBT has been described as the most toxic substance ever deliberately introduced into the sea. But the good news is that the ban is paying off. In certain areas, close to marinas, where the oysters and whelks were once being damaged the population is now recovering its health.

Worse to come?

The lesson, surely, is that we need to be very careful what we try next. And bearing in mind that, for most companies, the main motivation is greed, we, ourselves, need to keep watch over the situation.

One of the latest ingredients to find its way into antifoulings – and into the sea – is a thing called Econea. According to Pettit, Econea is, quite simply, the future of antifouling technology. Their top of the range product is called Ultima Eco and they proudly tell us that it contains over 53% more Econea than Interlux Pacifica Plus, and over 106% more than Sea Hawk Smart Solutions.
At no stage do Pettit tell us what the wonderful new product actually is – they just tell us that it breaks down quickly in the environment and its breakdown products are biodegradable – so I checked it out for myself.

Rummaging around the web I came across the Fluoride Action Group’s site, and on the site a page which contains an excerpt from the US Federal Register.
According to the register an application was made in 2005 for two new “Pesticide Products Containing Active Ingredients Not Included in any Previously Registered Products.” The products are described as antifoulant paints and the ingredient is Econea. The notes on the registration say, This chemical formula is similar to Chlorfenapyr (CAS No. 122453-73-0), which is one of the most reproductively toxic pesticides to avian species that EPA has evaluated. It is also a persistent compound in soil and sediment. Brain effects noted in rat and mice studies: spongiform myelopathy and/or vacuolation. In mice studies spongiform encephalopathy.

Just what we need sloshing around in the sea, hey!

I ran this one past Alex Walsh, of e-Paint (see below), and he had this to say:

Econea works for controlling barnacles, but so does copper.  Asked which I would take with a spoon full of sugar and I’d say copper. I don’t believe that fluorinated pesticides “degrade quickly in the environment.”  Sure they break down, but are the decomposition products safe?
Not a lot is known about econea.  It could be that environmental consequences of using the active make TBT look benign.

Before you buy your next batch of antifouling, read the small print and find out what’s inside; then look it up on line and find out what the active ingredient might do when released into the environment.

What do the market leaders have to offer us?

Bearing in mind that they must surely own the lion’s share of the market one would expect that Akzo Nobel (parent company for International) might be investing large sums of money into the business of finding a new, environmentally acceptable solution to this age old problem. In reality, however, they don’t seem to be remotely interested.
Having been banned from using TBT, International are now offering us paint which contains various copper compounds instead. Their emphasis appears to be on keeping ships clean at any cost so that they don’t have to burn more fuel and fill the sky with poison.

Big ship antifouling is big business. We hope that Azko Nobel et alia will come up with something which saves ships from needing to burn extra fuel – BUT it has to be something which is harmless to sealife too.

Protecting the atmosphere is vital – and we all know it – but if International had devoted just a small slice of their millions of dollars to the search for a “green solution” then we might not be in this mess; if they had begun to look for a safe solution 20 years ago, when the problem first came to light and TBT was banned from yachting antifoul – then the world might already be using something which is effective and safe for the marine environment.

On the whole, we try our best to avoid giving money to the big corporations. It’s hard to identify one which isn’t either harming the planet or making life miserable for someone, somewhere.  Acting responsibly is completely at odds with Capitalist philosophy. It contradicts a company’s legal duty, which is to act in whatever way will best enrich their shareholders. (Their shareholder’s bank accounts, that is; not their lives or the planet on which they live.)
International spent 20 years filling our oceans with TBT. So far as we are concerned they are criminals and we would be very loathe to buy any product offered by them however green it purported to be; but as it is, they don’t seem to be in the game anyway.

Just add sunshine

e-Paint is an American company which was founded by Alex Walsh – a  guy who wanted to research and produce environmentally friendly coatings. The manufacturer takes a traditional approach to antifouling but gives it a modern, ecologically acceptable twist.  Rather than use toxic metals to persuade the plankton et alia to buzz off, he employs a “patented photo-active technology”.
Essentially, sunlight acts on the pigment in the antifouling causing it to convert water and oxygen into hydrogen peroxide. Thus, so long as the pigment endures, the boat is permanently wrapped in a layer of poison.
Unlike metals, hydrogen peroxide does not stick around in the environment. It quickly reverts to being water and dissolved oxygen. Thus it would seem that the only organisms to be damaged by this technology are the ones which make contact with the hull.

e-Paint products are divided into two categories: those which rely exclusively on creation of the hydrogen peroxide blanket (referred to by the manufacturer as Release Coatings) and those (known by them as Antifoulings) which also contain two biocides.
Again, the biocides are considered to be effective but fairly innocent.  One is Zinc Omadine, which is said to be the active ingredient in dandruff shampoo. (I’ve checked, and it isn’t listed in the ingredients on a bottle of Head and Shoulders anti-dandruff shampoo, but there are two other zinc compounds listed.)
The other biocide is called SeaNine 211. Concerning this (which is a trademarked product) we are told only that it has won an award for its very short half-life.
According to the manufacturer, the two biocides are also quickly broken down into “harmless materials”. It would be nice to know a little bit more about them, since we do like to be sure about these things… but perhaps the company didn’t want to blind us with science.

According to e-Paint, Generally, maintenance scrubbing is only necessary for boats that are stationary for an extended period of time, [and for those] in high-fouling bodies of water, in murky waters that block penetration of sunlight, in anaerobic (low oxygen) bodies of water, or when using a biocide-free product (release coating).
This implies that the antifouling would not have been very effective on the Rio Paraíba – a chocolate coloured stretch of water where we recently spent three months. But then again, nothing else works there either. (If there are any manufacturers reading this article, I recommend that river as the ultimate testing ground for antifoulings.)

e-Paint works best in a clean clear sea like this one, where the sunshine can readliy reach the pigments.

So far as one can judge, e-Paint fits the criteria for an environmentally friendly antifouling, and we hope eventually to be able to test it. But only on our self-steering rudder. This is because e-Paint is an ablative product – it is designed to wear away, thereby ensuring that a new layer of the active ingredients is always ready to do battle – and so it is not a long-lasting solution to the problem of fouling.
If we were slipping our boat every winter then e-Paint might be the way to go. Certainly, it would be worth trying. But since our objective is to spend as many years as possible without having to haul out, the manufacturer’s boast of a 12 to 20 month lifespan makes this product a non-starter.
The self steering rudder, which hangs on the back of the boat, is easily lifted and so we are always very happy to make it available for the testing of anti-foul concoctions. Unfortunately, however, although e-Paint were willing and eager to supply us, they found that they were unable to ship their “hazardous material” overseas.

Eco-speed

A Belgian company has come up with a coating which attempts to replicate the qualities of the one type of flotsam which doesn’t attract settlers: the glass bottle.
Eco-speed is a tough, resilient coating consisting of glass platelets embedded in vinyl ester; and before we go any further I must emphasise the fact that Sub-Sea Industries are not, primarily, marketing the product as an antifouling. They are marketing it as a super-smooth and virtually impenetrable finish with the ability to protect a steel vessel from corrosion.

We first came across Eco-speed when we contacted Greenpeace. “What kind of antifoul are you using on your new, super-squeaky-green sailing ship?” we asked them.
The last time we asked Greenpeace what they were using they wouldn’t tell us – probably because there was nothing then available which was fit for the use of eco-warriors – but this time they put us in touch with Hydrex, the parent company for Sub-Sea Industries.

As you will see, if you visit the Hydrex website, their products are aimed at ships, and so at first we assumed that Eco-speed was one of those Teflon type anti-fouls which is only suitable for vessels which cruise at 12 knots. Further investigation shows that this is not so. Eco-speed is so named because it allows a vessel to slide through the water at top speed – (a super-smooth hull, free of fouling, is more hydro-dynamically efficient, and so less fuel is needed to send her on her way) – and because the saving in fuel and reduction in pollution is an eco, or environmentally-friendly, trait.

You don’t need to spend very long on the Eco-speed page before you realise that this is definitely not the antifoul of which we yotties all dream. The header shows a series of photos, one of which is labelled Cleaning Ecospeed will improve its surface characteristics. It shows a submarine covered in growth.
As if that were not sufficient explanation of what the manufacturer has in mind we also read that Ecospeed is suited to be subjected to regular in-water surface treatment.

When the water is as clear as this diving on the hull has far more appeal than slipping the boat to re-paint her.

On the other hand, if you can come to terms with the idea of under-water maintenance – if you can accept that as part of the deal – Ecospeed does have a lot going for it. You may have to dive on the boat from time to time, but you may never have to slip her again, ever! Provided that it is applied according to the manufacturer’s specifications, and under their watchful eye, this coating comes with a 10 year guarantee and is expected to last the lifetime of the vessel.
It turns out that Hydrex only expect your vessel to last 25 years… but, even so, that’s pretty good going for a coat of antifoul.

According to the manufacturers, the coating is 100% toxin-free and that there is no negative effect on the water quality or the marine environment at any point of its application or use.

Where’s the catch?
Well, from our point of view there are two catches. Firstly, this stuff is not suitable for use over other paints. If we wanted to use it on Mollymawk we would have to blast off our five perfectly healthy layers of epoxy.

Blast off five perfectly good coats of paint! You’ve got to be kidding!

Secondly, the requisite two coats would cost us more than 3,000 Euros. (This is the cost for 160 litres, which is the amount of paint needed to coat 80 m² of boat to the required thickness. It does not include the cost of hiring an airless spray gun to apply the paint, and it certainly does not include the cost of having a SubSea Industries representative on hand to oversee the operation and to approve the work for guarantee. This supervision costs an extra 600 Euros per day.)

Weighing it all up, if we were starting from scratch – and if we had £3,000 plus, plus, plus, to invest – then I think we might actually go for Eco-speed.  The concept of a bullet-proof coating which lasts for 25 years is highly attractive.
The coating is also suitable for use on GRP, and I would imagine that it offers a  sure-fire protection against external osmosis.
If they bring the price down, this product could revolutionise yachting.

If anybody has first-hand experience of using Eco-speed then we would be very interested to hear from you.

34 Comments

  1. Very interesting read! A new product I came across last week is Thorn-D. It’s a bit expensive, but would (supposedly) at least work for three years: http://www.micanti.com/industries-serving/shipping.html

    1. Caesar  (Mollymawk crew) 

      Thanks for the link. Thorn-D does look interesting; we hadn’t come across it before.
      It seems that the main intended use of it is to protect fishing nets from fouling, but I see that the website also mentions use as an antifouling on ships.

      It looks like it works by coating the whole of the bottom of the boat in fibres, or ‘thorns’.
      To quote from the website, “By applying very specific short fibres (‘thorns’) on a surface, the surface becomes prickly and unattractive for fouling organisms to settle … The basic thought behind Thorn-D® is that a combination of prickliness and swaying of Thorn-D® fibers makes the surface unattractive for organisms to settle.” Interesting.

      One point to consider, though, is the friction and disruption to water flow over the hull caused by these fibres. It’s unclear how long the fibres are, but the pictures make them look pretty long (it looks like a roll of carpet in one photo which they show in a few places). This could have a significant impact on boat speed – even a little slime on the bottom has an incredible effect.

      We’d be interested to know what Micanti has to say about this issue, and we’d also love to hear from someone who has used this product on their boat.

      Incidentally, another issue is that apparently the product must be applied by “authorized and trained partners of Micanti” – presumably an expensive process.

    2. Caesar  (Mollymawk crew) 

      I just found this page about drag tests on the Micanti website – where they state that “Within the shipping industry the main thought for the past decades was; the smoother the surface the better. We have proven this thinking to be wrong.” (no explanation of why it’s wrong…)

      However, they continue to say that (emphasis mine) “Though for sail boats the drag is mainly determined by surface drag and a drag increase was found, for most other ships and vessels, the drag increase is comparable to the effect a regular antifouling has on the drag. Moreover, as the drag level is constant, Thorn-D® outperforms the regular antifoulings within 6 months as slime formation increases the drag for regular antifouling coatings.”

      It would be nice to know just how much of a drag increase was found.

      1. It is expensive yes, on this Dutch website you can get an idea: http://antifouling.nu/contents/nl/basket.html

        I only know they’ve tested it on Pilot-boats in Rotterdam, but no info on drag/efficiency impact.

        1. Caesar  (Mollymawk crew) 

          Wow – €4750 for our boat!
          I don’t suppose many people will be using it at that price… it’s way too much for just 5 years of protection (even assuming it works well)!
          It’s a shame though, as it looks like one of the few antifouling products which uses no biocides.

          Of course, if they wanted to give us a small piece we’d love to test it on our self-steering rudder and write a review on the website! 🙂

  2. I own a 40ft multihull, so it’s not within my budget either;-)

  3. Hello, I just read, and enjoyed, your antifouling article. Very well researched. I’m the fellow who “ladled” the powder into the epoxy. Thus far we are still in the testing stage as the boat is not yet launched. The test piece is submerged in the waters of central Fla and after 3 months has no sign of growth. It’ll be 9 months before we can have it checked again for growth, but we’ll let you know the results.
    The recipe: MAS laminating epoxy and as much powder as it takes to make a peanut butter consistency. In future we’ll be testing a “mayonaise” consistency mix. The peanut butter mix worked out to about 1 part epoxy to 3 parts copper powder. Get it on smooth during application, because once it hardens it sands like copper pipe!
    Cheers.

    P&C on Q.

    1. Caesar  (Mollymawk crew) 

      Hello Paul, Thank-you very much for the report.

      That’s a lot of copper! I’m assuming your measurements are by volume – ie 75% copper by volume. Coppercoat and our home-brew are both 30% – and are pretty runny. We were under the impression in the past that this was a legal maximum, but this turns out not to be the case – you can use as much as you like. So we’re definitely interested in trying more next time.

      It will be really interesting to hear the results of your longer-term test – do let us know what happens!
      Is your test piece in stationary water? What’s the fouling like in the area? Do you have other antifouls under the same conditions, as a comparison?

      1. Hello, thanks for your comments.
        The test piece is in a salt water marina environment, the test piece is copper on one side and not covered at all on the other side. The area has a reputation for a lot of growth and we’re hopfull that it will be a good test for our undercoat.

        Now, to cover myself, and in the interest of full disclosure, since we ARE on the WWW:

        The measurements/ratios are by volume as you stated. As far as “legal” I have not researched copper content in antifoul (the rules are different in each country), as my “undercoating” is for abrasion resistance to enable beaching the boat, NOT anti-fouling. Our tests are simply to understand whether or not an antifouling will be needed.

        I’m sure you understand.

        Cheers.
        Paul.

        1. Caesar  (Mollymawk crew) 

          Hey Paul, I totally understand your legal disclaimer… 🙂 As it happens, even for an antifouling you’d be ok, since there don’t currently seem to be restrictions on amounts of copper (except in the Netherlands).

          One thing we were wondering, from a cost and weight point of view, is how think the mix went on – in other words, how much weight of copper did you end up with per square metre, say?

  4. Hello, thanks for your interest.
    For more information please send me an e-mail.

    Cheers.
    Paul.

  5. Hello Paul

    How did you trowel on the peanut paste consistency and yet keep it fair for the whole hull?

    I guess at that thickness, only one coat is necessary?

    I think your idea and recipe is getting close to the correct ratios for “abrasion” resistance.

    Thanks
    Niels

  6. Hey guys,

    Nice article… when I purchased my rusty bucket 6 years ago, she had the original CopperBot coat and seemed to work very well. Had to rebuild the boat and a lot of welding below the water line so it was a pitty the coat had to go. I resumed to regular ablative anti-fouling since I launched her 3 years ago but am getting quite tired and broke from the yearly ordeals, specially now that I’m in a wheelchair.

    So I heard of this epoxy and ceramic particles that they use on the structures of offshore oil-rigs and water dams. Many of those big cruise ships have porcelain sea cocks so I reckon it might be worth a shot since nothing really grows on glass or porcelain.

    The company that sells the stuff is AtoMetal ( http://www.atometal.net )and from what I read we’d be using AM-C-T200 for the epoxy undercoat and the AM-C-T310 for the epoxy ceramic antifouling.

    Has anyone heard of it???

    My project this winter is to replace my concrete ballast with lead and incorporate my water tanks in the keel, so there will be a great deal of welding and will sandblast everything below the waterline. So I would like to get it done with a product that I can haul out of the water once a year and have a spray down instead of the regular $1000 yearly ordeal of antifouling.

    Cheers

    Jon

    1. Caesar  (Mollymawk crew) 

      No, we haven’t heard of ceramic antifouling – although we have heard of a glass-based one which Greenpeace use on their ships, but which apparently only works at high speeds.

      Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much information around on the web. Atometal’s site does seem to say that the two products you mention would be the relevant ones, but has very little about them.
      I don’t know how easy it would be for yotties to get hold of, seeing as they seem to be marketing it for major offshore installations.
      I guess we should get in touch with the company and see if they can provide any further information, prices, etc.

      If you come across any further information, do please share it here.

  7. Tim Dickinson (Bonaire)

    Hi Mollymawks!
    Greetings from Mauritius! Very interesting article. Before leaving the UK, I watched the guys at Hayling Yacht Company applying a coat of copper to the bottom of a yacht that had just had its osmosis treated. They spread sheets under the boat and ‘pebbledashed’ particulate copper onto wet epoxy paint. I believe they used a hand wound dispenser, very similar to the sort of thing used for applying aggregate to wet rendering. Any excess was picked up and recycled. I reckon that this should achieve close to 100% copper coverage, although longterm adhesion could be a problem. I suppose you could always apply a second coat of epoxy and more particulate copper.
    Happy Travels!
    Tim, Steph Fin and Sam
    s/v Bonaire
    ps – great website!

    1. Caesar  (Mollymawk crew) 

      Hi guys, good to hear from you, hope you’re enjoying Mauritius!

      That sounds like an interesting method of applying the copper… If it worked then it should achieve a good amount of ‘active’ surface area, but like you say I imagine adhesion could be a problem particularly when scrubbed – one of the best things about the copper-epoxy system is that it’s so durable. I’d love to see a boat where the copper was applied in the way you describe.

  8. From all the info mentioned in both your articles on coppercoat/copperbot; I understand that the difference in the 3 products, copperbot, coppercoat and the home brewed copper mix with epoxy is the amount of copper particulates added to the epoxy. PERIOD!!
    The more copper you add the greater the length of protection. PERIOD!!

  9. Actually, I’m not sure about that, Sai.
    Yes, it seems that Coppercoat and our own homebrew are just as effective / ineffective, but the Copperbot was a miracle potion. Our friends at Coppercoat tell us that their product is produced to exactly the same formulation as was Copperbot, but the Copperbot which we used was so wonderfully effective that we’re inclined to wonder whether somebody slipped a little something extra into the pot!

    So far as the volume of copper is concerned, we’ve tried adding more – we’ve tried laying it on with a trowel, quite literally (on our self-steering rudder) – and it seemed to make no odds. Six months later, you couldn’t tell which parts were painted with the usual ratio of copper to epoxy and which were coated in epoxy-copper putty.

    Nor have we had any success by burnishing the Coppercoat. We’ve burnished parts of it, using the grade of paper recommended by the manufacturer, and we’ve had it looking as shiny as could be. But a few weeks later those parts were indistinguishable from the areas which were simply cleaned and sanded by hand.
    We’ll be slipping again, in a few weeks time, and if Coppercoat would like to fly out to Argentina and join us, and show us how to do the job properly, we would be delighted.

    All this having been said, we would still use a copper-epoxy bottom paint again because, so far as we are concerned, the environment matters more than the cleanliness of our hull. Copper-epoxy is not perfect, but it’s better than nothing and it’s better than poisoning the sea.
    We’ve found that the very best way to clean the bottom of the boat is to moor in a polluted river for a couple of months. All the marine weed and so forth dies, and nothing else grows (presumably because the river is dead…). Mind you, it doesn’t get the barnacles off. For that you probably need to moor next to Fukushima.

  10. My wife and I applied Coppercoat to a newly finished steel hulled boat. we followed all the instructions religiously and had suitable temperatures throughout. When finished it looked great and we thought ‘well done us’. Unfortunately it proved to be an expensive mistake. After 2 years we looked like a floating garden. We had the boat lifted and power washed. All the wildlife came off along with about 10% of the paint. We tried again; 2 years later even worse than before. Last summer we lifted again and slapped standard anti-fouling over the entire hull. So far it is doing better than the Coppercoat did.

    Coppercoat’s response was to blame us for faulty application or an incompatible undercoat which is an easy out and very difficult to disprove. They then went on to say we’d need to lift the boat every couple of years to scrub off the slime. Given our sailing area at the time this was not much use and I would not ever use Coppercoat again.

    In the commercial world of shipping the trend at the moment seems to be towards making hull paint too smooth for sea life to attach to; some paint manufacturers are looking at ceramic / silicon coatings as well as various super secret nano technologies. whether or not these may have environmental side effect i do not know. What I do know is that anti-fouling is a hugely expensive item in the commercial marine world and with current fuel costs there is a big incentive to reduce running costs due to excess marine growth.

  11. It’s a grim story – all that work and all that expense; and I’m very familiar with the feeling of pride and pleasure in a job well done and disappointment when the stuff doesn’t work as well as one hoped and expected.

    The manufacturer is certainly inclined to blame anything other than the product, but – with respect – if large amounts of the Coppercoat came off with the sealife this does tend to suggest that there was incompatibility between the two paints. What kind of undercoat or tie-coat did you use? (ie. what was the Coppercoat going on to?)

  12. Hi there,
    Interesting, well organized website and well done programming to display it.

    I am building a 19m catamaran. Do NOT ask how long its been NOR when we will launch!

    We are now on the shore next to a bay in Curacao that is filled with what we call protein soup. It is fish spawning heaven and everything else that can grow in salt water does grow here. We foolishly sold our old boat wa-a-a-y before the new one was ready. But, it was anchored here for about a year and a half. Three months after anchoring here our previously clean bottom had a six to eight inch growth of every creature that likes boat bottoms. Worst we experienced in 15 years of living aboard in the Atlantic, Med and Caribbean. So, I started investigating anti-fouling substances.

    Found a company called Ecosea with an interesting product at a horribly high price. Managed to find out that they were using an alloy consisting of 90% copper and 10% nickel embedded in an epoxy coating. Went searching for a manufacturer of the alloy and found that there were only 5 places in the world that made it at that time. I contacted one in the U.S. (now out of business since the world economy has been TBTd to death) and bought around 90 pounds of the stuff.

    So here’s where it gets interesting. I prepared a test piece with several bare and coated areas, trying different coating techniques, and tossed it over the side, all test areas facing down. It seemed to work a charm. Checked on it periodically over the next year and some months. NO growth on the treated areas. Then, when the old boat was gone, I had the people helping me build the new boat make a swim platform, to give them some experience. Coated it with the alloy mixed with epoxy and then sanded the surface when all was hard and cured.

    It took about six months before the growth showed up. The growth has continued, but at slower pace than compared with what occurred on the bottom of our old boat. Most of the growth and most of the ‘white coral’ could be relatively easily scraped off. My conclusion was that the epoxy matrix holding the alloy provided a starting point for the growth and then that was all she wrote. The alloy parts of the surface seem to have prevented the nasty irreversible attachment of ordinary fouling, but it is still very fouled. So, I decided to modify the technique for applying the alloy. Brush on a very thin layer of epoxy and then use a gun designed to blow sand or dry powder to shoot the alloy onto the wet epoxy. This was similar to the way we had applied it to the test piece. Collect the excess alloy that falls to the ground (or is brushed off when the epoxy cures) on plastic sheets placed there in advance. Obviously you don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself with wet epoxy or it will start to cure. Can’t tell you how it will work because the new boat is not yet in the water.

    The idea behind the alloy is this. Copper works but is leached away by the sea water. The reason the old copper plates worked well is that they were relatively thick and leaching didn’t matter. The new copper coatings suffer from leaching and lose their effectiveness in 1 to 2 years. In the alloy, the nickel binds to the copper and prevents nearly all the leaching. Nickel is also very toxic, but it DOESN’T leach away. Therefore, the nickel doesn’t affect anything not in direct contact with it. Wish I could afford a nickel plated bottom. If you try this, be aware that you can develop contact dermatitis. That is, your body reacts to the nickel and you develop a bad rash, not necessarily where you touched the powder, but somewhere on your skin because your body is very upset about things. It’s sort of like a bad allergy.

    Conclusions: NiCu powder (100nm average diameter particles) may work well if all is done correctly, but I can’t say that for sure just yet. NiCu powder is difficult to locate and initially expensive. I have about 100m2 of surface underwater and I paid around $2000 for enough powder to coat it 5 years ago. But, it should last for 10 years easily IF you can get it to work for you.

    Fair winds.
    Steve

  13. Hi,
    Looking at all the coments about antifouling and costs, it occured to me that maybee
    , just maybe the effectiveness of the coppercoat is somehow influenced by the steel hull? Do people with GRP hulls have the same problem, any comments will be apreciated.
    Regards Len
    Ps My Boat is in the Mar menor spain, very high fouling area!!

  14. I have read that UV light blinds barnacle larvae and then they do not attach.
    http://www.nature.com/news/2003/030226/full/news030224-4.html

    There are countless numbers of larvae, killing them around your ship wont harm their awesome numbers.
    They are attracted like bugs to a light, so maybe only need a couple of UV lights either built into the hull of around the hull..
    Perhaps underwater UV lights exist? Of course they take power to run. My thoughts, if UV works, boats slipped at marinas with electric shore power could afford to use such a system.

  15. Hi Jill & crew of Molly hawk,
    The dilemma continues!
    No mention was made on the type of epoxy used in copperbot.
    Was the copperbot 100% solids standard laminating epoxy or was it water based?
    Does it make any difference?

    I understand coppercoat is water based, Whether type 1 or type 2 is of interest. I wonder if it is the non-reactive
    emulsifier type which could allow a more even Cu salt dispersion. ie non-phenyl based diluant.

    It seems a little like chasing shadows as the same product does not seem to produce consistent repeatable results.
    Imo, copper powder/epoxy carrier combinations are the most ocean friendly. From what I have read anyway.
    Application is critical, both in substrate prep and application of thin multiple coats to enable exposure of copper.

    Obviously no antifouling is going to be completely benign, but it is important to find one that is more deterent than
    toxic. Alas, sound seems difficult to implement.

    My daughter has more than a passing interest in establishing a template of “cues” to attract sealife to recolonise
    reef sites.
    http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028572

    It doesn’t necessarily follow that the reverse is also genetically imprinted.

    Fair winds,
    Roly Stanley

  16. We bought our boat 2009, coppercoat had been applied but dont know when, had a repair to both hulls and coppercoat applied to both bows about 1m along water. I used to dive and scrape scrub with scourers and paint scrapers monthly in Sydney harbour, and up into QLD. the cat ended up on a mooring for the best part of 4 years, we’ve just hauled out and there was severe attachments of barnacles, some oysters, weed etc except for the newly appied coppercoat which was almost slime free!!!! I had been talked into applying ablative and this forum hasn’t helped me return to the original desire for enviro friendly epoxy copper. Our boeat is not steel, its glass over timber. Regards Peter

  17. For background, I started off as a Civil and Structural Engineer, and have done loads of things since (skilled Electrical Engineer, custom computer builder, designed a few things like special copper nails, import/export and wholesale/retail of building products such as slates, granites, etc., etc., also am a qualified Wildlife Manager and qualified Advanced Marksman), had a deep interest in environmental issues for almost 50 years, have subscribed to more Scientific journals for way too long (until fake science came to dominate – and yeah, I have a very big axe to grind about that, and so many frauds and lies that are committed under the banner name of ‘environmentalism’ today) considering the expenditure. But I have picked up a few things along the way. An along the way that also included living off grid for over 30 years, and a lot of sailing here and there too (I have built a couple of boats but have no boat now).

    First things first, you have hit on the reality that copper is an indispensable essential in the environment. In fact copper deficiency is really serious, and I know this because where I live the ground has a serious copper deficiency (as an aside, sulphur deficiency is also serious, and due to the reduction in ’emissions’ which gave land free fixes of essentials such as sulphur, farmers are now having to pay a lot of money to buy sulphur to spread on the land). My farming neighbours have to give their livestock copper pills and copper drenches to prevent serious damage (what they call ‘staggers’ in sheep, for example).

    I never liked the use of TBT in antifouling, but I did like the concept of a self polishing antifoul. I am extremely wary of organophosphates and the damage they are doing. My neighbour died a couple of years ago from ‘CJD’, but the truth was (and this was confirmed by his specialist, despite what was put on the death certificate), as a sheep farmer, he had ‘CJD’ from the organophosphate in sheep dip. Cattle have been getting it from organophosphate in warble fly treatment (poured down the spine of the animal, and from there, fast tracked into the brain, is how it looks to function).’CJD’ doesn’t look to be a disease or ‘transmittable’ it looks to be a chronic poisoning problem.

    So back to copper and antfouling. I wouldn’t worry about using it, at all. Personally, I would house the copper particles in the toughest, most water resistant and durable epoxy resin, I could lay my hands on (for full anti osmosis and lifespan benefit). I am wondering if coppercoat is ‘hit or miss’ due to how runny it is tbh. To me that suggests that the copper particle count (the amount of copper per litre of paint) is being reduced to an absolute minimum (copper being expensive, though it isn’t ‘that’ expensive – it didn’t cost me much to get my copper nails made in bulk, and I sold them cheap – while maintaining a reasonable profit otherwise the business would have gone bust – to encourage the use of a proper nail fit for purpose – but then as a Capitalist rather than a Corporate Socialist – what today is widely confused with Capitalism, and it is no accident – I am neither a Monopolist, a Cartelist, nor Anti-Competitive, nor Anti-Job, nor a Racketeering Crook, nor am I GREEDY).

    I think people are coming at this from the wrong direction in many cases (e.g. people asking what particle size you are using). Instead, look at it like concrete, where various particle sizes (up to large aggregate, and down to dust) are used to make a good concrete.

    The important question, to me, is how thick is the layer of epoxy that is going on in one coat? The maximum particle size then has to be less than that thickness (I would go with maybe about 50% to 60% of the coat thickness?) for ease of application. To me, it would appear that you do not want any significant gaps between the copper particles. I think it is the ‘gaps’ which are filled with the epoxy resin, that are acting as host for fouling to become established, and with ‘burnishing’ back to the copper, if there is too much epoxy to aggregate ratio, then you are ‘keying’ the epoxy to give fouling a firm grip to get started. So I would combine aggregate sizes down to sufficiently small, to obtain sufficient gap filling, and do a final ‘burnish’ with a very fine abrasive to reduce the impact of excessive ‘keying’ and ease self cleaning. Jewellers Rouge springs to mind as perhaps providing a perfect final finish (though perfect probably isn’t essential), and to get there, you wouldn’t want to start with an excessively coarse abrasive. Don’t put in excessive ‘keying’ that you then have to take out.

    Personally I would try for an application consistency similar to household vinyl emulsion (obviously you have to compensate for the consistency of the epoxy you are using). Then you should have excellent particle content, in a form that can be rapidly applied with a roller (believe it or not – grins – along the way I have also been a decorator, and two of us could do one coat, walls and ceiling of a dormitory in a hostel, in under 20 minutes – and I think it’s that sort of performance you need, to be able to speedily apply multiple coats at the tacky stage).

    Then once it has fully cured, I would use a belt sander (not an orbital one) to get everything faired off smooth and cut back to exposed copper. Also, it might pay to have two experiments. First I would start with fine belts, and lightly work horizontally, along the line of flow of water, with the idea that the final polish would have small keying marks in the flow direction, and the flow along the exposed copper should help to keep them clean. The second experiment I would do the opposite, vertical from waterline to keel, which would give small vertical scratches in the polishing. This ‘might’ produce micro turbulence (maybe even compression bubbles) and improve performance as well as also help to keep the micro keying clear. Apart from other reasons (such as inexperienced hands can make a real mess with one), this is why I wouldn’t use an orbital sander – keying marks will be all over the place. In a way this is illustrated like with the use of uPVC plastics (for guttering, fascia boards, etc). The ‘skin’ is so soft, the worst thing you can do is wipe it clean, because you put fine scratches in the surface, and all manner of growth gets in them and your plastics look a mess before you can blink. I also used to sell very good quality plastics, and I used to tell my customers to buy marine grade clear liquid silicon polish (that leaves a ‘diamond’ like finish), then as they peeled the plastic protective wrap off the surface after fixing, use cotton wool to gently wipe this polish onto the surface of the plastic, to give it a durable hard shell coating. We did this to my parents fascias almost 30 years ago, and they are like new today. I don’t touch them, I just hose them down now and again.

    Unfortunately I am not in a position presently to test this epoxy/copper myself (frankly I’d go with the second method first, and I’d use enough coats of epoxy/copper to be able to buff it out after a few years and try the first method), and it looks to be a few years before I will be in a position to have a boat to use it on, but when I do, I will be using this principle to make my own anti-fouling, unless a commercial organisation produces something similar and effective, that isn’t a blatant rip-off.

    In the meantime hopefully Cartel, Monopolistic, Racketeering, Internationalist (Communist) Corporate Socialism, will have died its now overdue, and inevitable final self destruction. Buckle up, there’s a storm coming.

  18. Hi Mollymawks,
    I have a 10′ GRP SV and have been looking for a poison free anti-foul. Love your article and research – thank you.
    The research Ive seen suggests a yearly scrub-down but i can understand if this varies from place to place.
    One anti foul method was electrodes placed at bow and stern to create an electric field around the hull and discourage fouling. Not sure how well it works, but I was wondering if the copper reacts with the salt water to create a small electric field and that if another particle was added, it may intensify that field (carbon? zinc?). The next questions , how much would this affect the electrolysis of the vessel and would the effects be worse than having to clean the plain copper impregnated epoxy?
    Really interested to hear thought on the subject.
    Cheers
    Jon

  19. Update
    In lieu of something better I went ahead with 3 coats of west 105 & 2kg/l of 300 mesh semi spherical copper powder, 3 coats wet on tacky. Frequently stirred whilst applying. Applied 3 thin coat to about a total 600microns.
    Went for the 100% solids non-WB epoxy as we didn’t want to have to remove to recoat in future and wanted retain more barrier properties.
    RO back with 180 grit to expose raw copper then 400 for polish.

    One & half years later we are pleased with the results. Easily cleaned by hand every 3-4 months with a plastic scraper.
    The RIB left alongside for 4 mths was a mess and required an acid to break down the hard shell base.

    Picture of the RIB after four months- This is after a hard scrub. None of the oyster adhered to the yacht.
    http://crew.org.nz/forum/index.php/topic/13257-a-not-anti-fouling-anti-fouling/page-10

    Roly

    1. Thanks for sharing your experiences, Roly. Always glad to hear from someone for whom the environmentally sound way is working!

  20. You may find this more recent research on acoustic anti-fouling interesting:

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0029801815001572

    1. Thanks for that. Our recent experience of recording dolphin vocalisations has made us very aware of the potential problem of “noisy” antifouling.

  21. Hi guys, awesome blog with non biased, honest opinions.
    Have you heard of barnicalerid. An electronic system utilizing copper electrodes hung from the ends of a vessel, creating a cu ion field. It’s an Australian company which has been running for 9 years. Website reads very positive, as it would, but very hard to find independent reviews, negative or positive.
    Cheers and thanks for your blog.

    1. Hullo Mark,
      No, we haven’t heard of this. We’ll check it out.
      We’re just about to slip and do the antifouling again, so it’s a matter of pressing concern to us at the moment.
      Thanks for the information,
      Jill

  22. Your most welcome Jill. Could you let me know your findings as I’m pretty keen on the product myself, just a little wary.
    Cheers,
    Mark

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