Painting waterline with hard bottom paint?

[jen1722terry]

Oh what a beautiful morning here in northern New Hampshire!

A great day for sailing. Unfortunately, our 31 is still under cover in Gold River, Nova Scotia, over 600 miles away. It will be a few more weeks until we head over for the summer and we miss her.

But we certainly have lots of time to think about the sailing season, which brings us to the subject of slimy water lines.

In Nova Scotia, the bottom fouling is not too bad, and the standard Hydrocoat performs well (except for the keel bottom, where the sea bottom sometimes lunges up to rub off the paint - a result of mini-earthquakes for sure - for it certainly couldn't be our impeccable navigation).

Our waterline is another matter. It gets green slime which has to be scrubbed off every month or so. The waterline was raised slightly by the PO, due to an inch or so of squating in the stern (we have stern davits), so we don't want to raise it further.

Has anyone used a hard antifouling paint for their boot top? If so, how did it perform?

And do enjoy your spring sailing,

[Jim Walsh]

My boot top needed to be painted this spring so I took the advice (almost) of some British yachties and painted my boot top with bottom paint, which is very common on that side of the pond. They use hard bottom paint but I found a quart of CD brown Micron Extra (ablative) on the shelf at a West Marine during a moving sale. It was marked down to $7.99. I'll be sure to let everyone know how it worked out at the end of the season.

[jen1722terry]

Great, Jim.

We'll look forward to a report.

Already painted our waterline last fall (Brightside-Dark Blue), but I may just sand it off and try some bottom paint in blue of dark brown this coming fall.

And do enjoy your spring sailing. Wish we were in, but things are keeping us in New Hampshire a bit late this year. We hope to be cruising in Nova Scotia by late June. We better be, for we rented out our house July 4-11!

Late summer, we're planning on sailing up to the famous Bra D'or Lake on Cape Breton Island. The sailing reports we've gotten are glowing, so we'll be looking forward to it.

Cheers!

Jenn and Terry

[rollo_cd26]

If a paint is for above the water line it means it. I repainted the boot stripe on my CD26D with Rustoleum marine paint (green) and it bubbled within 3 months and looks like crap (much time spent researching and prepping the job too). I'm going for hard bottom paint next time I pull it out.

[jen1722terry]

Good advice, Rollo.

We'll look around this summer for a quart of hard bottom paint on sail (or did I mean sale?).

Jenn and Terry

[JWSutcliffe]

Clear enough useless clutter out of your lockers so the boot stripe is clear of the water! Sarcastic sounding, I know. But it really works, believe me. Amazing how much gets tucked away!

[jen1722terry]

Belated thanks for the advice, Skip.

We wish we could make the boat lighter, but as we do long cruises, we carry more stuff than the typical sailor.
Such is life.

Happy Sailing

Jenn and Terry