BARNACLES AND BENETEAUS

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Another day of warmth arrived last week. So I once again took advantage of it and went down to the boatyard to check on BIANKA.  A couple of the guys from the boatyard  had a 36 foot Beneteau in the marine lift and were working hard on the bottom with scrappers. The boat was being voluntarily repossessed and had been sitting at a dock for three years. Here is what the bottom looked like after three years:

There were barnacles and other growth of course. But, most of the bottom was covered with thousands of nice sized mussels:

Somewhere in the above photo is a mussel covered sail drive. Below is another view:

I was severely tempted to gather a pound or two of the mussels and whip up some Mussels Posillipo for dinner.

But, I instead left them all for the Seagulls who with several hundred pounds of mussels piled up next to the dock will have thought they had died and went to heaven.
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WHAT WORKS: Plastic bag on the prop.

That's The Bag I'm In -Fred Neil

Once again I was away from the BIANKA for an extended period of time. One month or so. I wanted to avoid the marine growth on the prop the boat experienced earlier this summer as you can see below:

So this time I decided to do an experiment of something I had heard about from other sailors. Before I left the boat I covered the prop with a plastic bag. One of those that you get when you buy something in supermarkets etc... I tied it around the prop and came back a month later and it looked like this:

I dove under the boat just using my snorkel and quickly removed the bag from the prop:



I must say it worked pretty good  in keeping the prop clean of the major marine growth and only had a barnacle or two on the blades:

So if you are going to away for an extended time covering the prop with a plastic bag does work pretty good in keeping marine growth off the prop.

SPRING CLEANING: PROP AND DYNAPLATE

I don't put any anti fouling on my prop. I do occasionally dive over the summer and clean the prop by hand when the boat is in the water. But, late in the season the water gets a little too cold to do so. When I pull the boat there might be a few barnacles that have attached themselves to the prop. So one of my annual spring outfitting chores is cleaning and polishing the prop. I start using my trusty hand held Paint Scrapper to knock off what barnacles I can:

It easy to knock off the hard barnacle shells using this tool both on land and also when the boat is in the water too.

Once I've removed most of the barnacles that attached to the prop late in the season. I then switch to using an electric drill and an 3M Paint and Rust Stripper which makes cleaning and polishing the prop a fast and easy process as this video shows:



It also does a real good job cleaning and polishing the boats Dyna Plate ground plane too:

MORE ANTI FOULING SOLUTIONS

Bob who writes the BOAT BITS blog and I were amused that we happen to write about antifouling strategies on the same day. Bob has written before about an impulse purchase at a European boat show that turned out to be pretty effective in controlling growth on the boat bottom. He recently posted about finding a similar electronic system that costs less than half of what I have to pay the boatyard every year for a bottom painting on BIANKA. You can read about Bob's discovery and his very good description of how it works here at his Boat Bits blog. But, before you go and order the system one needs to read the fine print:

"Works with aluminium and fibreglass boats (not suitable for timber, ferro cement or fibreglass foam sandwich construction)"

If your boat meets the conditions for use. It might save you a lot of work when cleaning the bottom or dollars buying expensive antifouling paint. At the very least it's cheaper than a gallon of good bottom paint and might be worth a try. Some assembly required.

GOOD NEWS FOR BOAT BOTTOMS

It's getting a little cold these days to go and check the bottom of the boat. Some areas of the country like Washington State going after recreational boaters and preventing them from using copper based anti fouling paint. Why? Because they can. Meanwhile, they don't say boo to the commercial vessels in their waters. But there is some good news:

"Multi-seasonal barnacle (Balanus improvisus) protection achieved by trace amounts of a macrocyclic lactone (ivermectin) included in rosin-based coatings"

A research paper of the stuff can be found here. Even better news is that Ivermectin is already very available for boaters and anyone else that may want to make their own antifouling paint. More states may follow with the copper ban. But, if they come for my Gam Pro 6 in 1 Paint Scraper they will have to pry it out of my (hopefully not dead) hands.

JUST SCRAPPING BY

No this is not a post on the state of the economy.  BANKA has been on the mooring for a little over a month. This is because I was in the process of redesigning and building the boat's solar dodger after the damage from  the ill fated Reid Stowe flotilla trip. Then my girfriend dragged me out on a beach vacation for a week. The beach vacation is over and the new and improved solar dodger has been installed and secured (I'll be posting about that installation in a future post) so it's time to start cruising again. Well,  not so fast. Especially, when I dove under the boat to check the condition of the prop.

The waters here on the Isle of Long have been exceptionally warm this year thanks to the hot summer and the marine organisms have been loving it as much as I have.  Somewhere in the photo below of sponges, seaweed and barnacles is a 16 inch three bladed prop and prop shaft.

Some of the sponges are actually quite colorful:

And if the shrimp who are also hanging around the area where just a bit larger I'd have some appetizers for my sundown drinks. While this sight might be very interesting to a marine biologist. To this sailor who is chomping at the bit to get some more cruising in something needs to be done. But, what to do?

 

Behold the GAM PRO ADVANTAGE 6 IN ONE paint scraper tool! This nasty medieval looking weapon is just the thing I have found when one needs to attack a barnacle encrusted prop. It is very stiff and sturdy and the curved crescent area is great for clearing the prop shaft or grabbing onto it when the boat swings in a current. It also has a convenient hole to attach a lanyard to put around your wrist. Plus I like that is called the GAM PRO. It adds a little nautical feel to the tool.  Not that I want to have any more conversation with the barnacles that I remove off the prop beyond ADIOS!

INTERESTING PROPOSITIONS

One good thing about pulling the boat every year is that you get to inspect the hull without holding your breath or putting on Scuba gear. You can also look around the boat yard and see what other boat owners have for keels, props etc... Sometimes there are some mysteries as well. Such as what's the story behind this prop?


Did this boats owner never turn on his engine? Did he always sail off the mooring? Perhaps they never even got on the boat the whole season. Looks like they would have been in for a little surprise if they did need to use the motor considering the growth on the prop. Speaking of props I have a little mystery concerning BIANKA's prop. While polising it last spring I noticed some confusing markings on it.


From the numbers stamped on it I am assuming that it's a 16 inch diameter right handed prop. But, it appears that the original 14 inch pitch was restamped to 13 inch. Since I speced BIANKA with a 16 inch 14 inch pitch I will need to try and see how the 13 inch pitch would affect preformance under electric propulsion with the different pitch. Another reason why it's good to double check things on haulouts.