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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

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Green bottom gunk

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Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5377 Posts

Initially Posted - 09/18/2013 : 20:17:29

Passage lives in the river just off Long Island Sound where currents are almost nil - this makes it really easy to get on and off the dock and out to the big water quickly.
HOWEVER, it also encourages some kind of green algae slime to thickly grow all over the bottom paint in these warm waters of late summer/early fall.
I notice I've got at least 1/2" of mossy gunk on the bottom. The other day, I took my kayak paddle and used it like a paint scraper and took off several sheets of this crap.
My question is whether I should take the boat out to a 4ft tidal pool, hop in the water and spend a few hours giving her a good bottom scrub with a brush or squeegie, or just wait about 6 weeks until I get her hauled to get a good bottom power-wash?
I don't race, but I plan on sailing until Halloween, depending on weather trends. Hoping to have good sailing weather til then...

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

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Sloop Smitten
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Response Posted - 09/18/2013 : 20:40:24

Bruce,
Any chance you could wheel the power washer down to the dock and pressure blast the hull while it is still in the water? I would think the wand would give you pretty good coverage just reaching from the dock.

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Voyager
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Response Posted - 09/18/2013 : 20:44:36

Might work. I have access to a dock with power and water - might be worth a try!

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Stinkpotter
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Djibouti
9081 Posts

Response Posted - 09/18/2013 : 21:19:07

What's your bottom paint? The anti-slime versions seem to work well for me--my current choice is Pettit Hydrocoat SR. Of course, I occasionally "power-wash" my bottom just by going out...

But that doesn't do much from the chines up to the waterline--she's pretty clean there after a little too much idle time at the dock this year.

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 09/18/2013 21:22:03

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

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Response Posted - 09/19/2013 : 11:36:21

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Sloop Smitten
 Bruce,
Any chance you could wheel the power washer down to the dock and pressure blast the hull while it is still in the water? I would think the wand would give you pretty good coverage just reaching from the dock.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I've tried this on SL, pretty much as soon as you stick the wand in the water, it's trying very hard to push away from the hull. I found that jumping in the water with a brush works pretty well, if time consuming. If I knew where to find shallow water that wasn't scary I'd be willing to stand around the boat with a brush on a handle and scrub away.

Here in the PNW, I've been very pleased with Pettit's Trinidad SR (Slime Release). I have a thin layer of slimy green stuff that comes right off with your hand, brush or cloth.

Right now the only place I have appreciable growth is the very bottom of my keel, where I can see mussels of pretty good size growing. I want to go and intentionally ground the boat in sand to scrub them off, but haven't found a good place to do so, plus I'm a bit leery of doing it in the first place.

Edited by - delliottg on 09/19/2013 11:37:15

dmpilc
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Response Posted - 09/19/2013 : 11:43:07

First, take the boat out and give the outboard a bit of exercise. running it at hull speed for a little while might knock off a bunch of that stuff. some guys here made up a long handle scrubber (think BIG paint roller) that held an inflatable bumper between supports which was covered with a nylon scrubbing material. The bumper held close to the hull well.

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GaryB
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Response Posted - 09/19/2013 : 12:52:32

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by dmpilc
 First, take the boat out and give the outboard a bit of exercise. running it at hull speed for a little while might knock off a bunch of that stuff. some guys here made up a long handle scrubber (think BIG paint roller) that held an inflatable bumper between supports which was covered with a nylon scrubbing material. The bumper held close to the hull well.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I've got one of these that came with the boat but I've never used it.

[url="http://dridiver.com/"]Dri-Diver[/url]

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Voyager
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5377 Posts

Response Posted - 09/19/2013 : 19:12:28

I've got to walk the fine line of peeling off the gunk without scraping or rubbing off the ablative paint. No anti-slime ingredients in the bottom paint. I have a kayak paddle with a square end blade. Seems like it worked pretty well like a wide blade scraper, as no paint came off, only slime. Being in my kayak while I was working it was tough using the paddle both to peel the gunk and position the boat. Milford is famous for its extended tidal flats (second only to Cape Cod in these parts), so I can wait for a calm day, find a 4 ft sandbar and scrape until the tide comes in. I see a lot of stinkpotters out there cleaning off their fouled props in the same way.

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redeye
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Response Posted - 09/20/2013 : 03:43:15

I take a pretty stiff bristled brush with a lanyard and a mask and snorkel to the bottom about every 3 to 6 months. The bottom is vc17.

A coupla ropes off the side to hold onto occasionally, and sometimes I
use scuba gear to make the job more relaxing.

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Voyager
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5377 Posts

Response Posted - 09/21/2013 : 06:11:02

The breezes will be 20+ in gusts today so I think I might do some work on the dock instead of venturing out into the bay to clean her. We had a deep spring tide last evening so I may want to wait a week for a neap tide to take her out for a scrape. Expecting a few windless days later this week, so conditions should be better.
Nonetheless, I was making 4.8 kts on a beam reach with 12kt breezes last night. Must be smooth gunk!

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awetmore
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Response Posted - 09/21/2013 : 08:51:53

Don't clean soft bottom paint in a tidal pool, you'll kill organisms living in it by depositing all of that copper there. Here in WA it is illegal to clean soft (abalative) bottom paint in the water at all, doing it in a tidal pool is just that much worse. If you need to do it in the water then do it where there is good water exchange.

When was the boat last painted?

I sail a lot and it seems like active use of the boat plus good bottom paint for the local conditions keeps it quite clean. I've snorkled under it twice this year and found no growth issues. I'm in the PNW (near delliotg), but on salt water where he is in a tidal river (mix of salt and fresh).

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Voyager
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Response Posted - 09/25/2013 : 19:43:01

Good advice - however the bay is not a tidal pool but a large area with good tidal current. Passage is moored in a river estuary with low salinity at low tide and high salinity at high. Seems like everything in the river gets coated with the green gunk. Probably high nitrates due to the zillions of Canada geese, cormorants, ducks, mute swans, egrets and other waterfowl pooping in the river and tons of dog walkers around the riverbank town park.
My guess is I will deal with it until Halloween when I haul out for the winter. It's another five weekends.

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Stinkpotter
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Djibouti
9081 Posts

Response Posted - 09/25/2013 : 20:04:42

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Voyager
 ...Probably high nitrates due to the zillions of Canada geese, cormorants, ducks, mute swans, egrets and other waterfowl pooping in the river and tons of dog walkers around the riverbank town park...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">...and farms and bright green lawns all the way up to northern Massachusetts. Try a dual-biocide paint next year. Water-based Pettit Hydrocoat SR seems to be working well for me--it's my first year with it. I surely didn't miss the solvent smell!

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 09/25/2013 20:07:54

awetmore
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Response Posted - 09/26/2013 : 07:28:19

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Voyager
 Good advice - however the bay is not a tidal pool but a large area with good tidal current.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

You had written:
"My question is whether I should take the boat out to a 4ft tidal pool, hop in the water and spend a few hours giving her a good bottom scrub with a brush or squeegie"

I was objecting to that plan. If soft paint is cleaned in the water it needs to be done somewhere with decent current to try and disperse the biocidies (copper and whatever else).

It sounds like you have the wrong bottom paint for your conditions. It would be worth checking with others at your marina to get an idea of what works best for them.

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