BOTTOMS UP!

It's getting busier in the boatyard and roomier too as the boats begin to get launched. The smell of bottom paint starts filling the air. My boatyard's contract has a stipulation that only they can paint the bottom which as I get older seems like a better idea anyway. Though when thinking about bottom painting I get reminded of something I saw in Oyster Bay last fall. It was the test station for one of the manufacturers of marine bottom paints:

Two of the companies researchers were busy looking at the samples which had been languishing in the test racks over the season. The test samples included the companies products as well as some competitors along with untreated fiberglass panels. There were about 20 racks each with several panels including the untreated ones. It was very interesting to see the difference between the panels with bottom paint and those that were not painted:

I tried but, I could not get them to tell me which bottom paint worked best in the area. But, certainly some bottom paint works much better than none at all.