A dirty hull is a real drag. Whether you are racing around the marks on your sailboat or steaming across the bay, having a clean, smooth wetted surface is faster and more efficient, not to mention more fun. With the price of fuel the way it is these days, anything we can do to be more efficient makes sense. Having a clean hull makes a real difference in both time and money.
There are two things that tend to foul boat hulls: biological growth and bottom paint buildup. Fortunately, Wayfarer has solutions for both problems.
A hull in good shape that is being dragged down by living stuff can be quickly hauled and pressure washed . I know in the past that many of us have simply scrubbed our hulls in the water. There are a couple of problems with this approach. On the practical level, the water in Maine is COLD, and professional divers are not always nearby, or available. The second concern is that scrubbing a hull in the water releases bits of bottom paint that is not friendly to the sea creatures that spend their lives in the water. The best method in today’s world to clean a dirty hull is to haul it out and have it pressure washed. The other bonus of hauling boats to clean the bottom is being able to check the running gear, props, shafts, rudders and zincs for signs of wear to head off problems before they occur. Finding a problem early can be the difference between spending a few hundred or thousands of dollars to remedy a situation. Please call us if you are interested in a quick haul.
If your boat has years of bottom paint buildup, it may become rough and uneven as subsequent coats cover areas where flakes have fallen off. The effect can be ugly, slow and inefficient. The best solution to this situation is Soda Blasting. Soda Blasting is a technique much like sand blasting, but instead of using some coarse material like sand, baking soda is used. Yeah, that’s right, the stuff in your blueberry muffins. The benefit of baking soda is that it is tough enough to strip the paint, but not so abrasive as to damage the gel-coat under the paint. Soda blasting leaves a surface ready to paint, without much prep work. Before soda blasting came along, chemical strippers were the accepted form of removing bottom paint. Besides making a real mess and being environmentally harmful, the bottom was left in a state that required lots of sanding and prep work before a new bottom anti-fouling system could be applied.
