Antifoul removal

Any tips here? I bought some Dilunett gel remover and gave it a go. It doesn't do what is says on the tin! Says it will take off anitfoul and up 8 layers of paint. After 4 hrs....nothing. (I've put some more on to leave overnight....)

I have some Nitromors, but I know that takes off the gel coat too....

err.... why do you want to take it off? just put the new stuff on top, usually its no problem to remove when i power hose mine at the end of the season 90% of the antifoul comes off.

Neil I completely sympathise with you. We changed our boat and purchased a second hand quicksilver off John McAleese early in the year and specifically asked for no Anti-foul. To our annoyance he put it on anyway!!!

Taking Antifoul off is not easy no matter what anyone says. It firstly depends on the type of antifoul used, there are several types and if you have one on your boat designed for high speeds, i.e 25knots + then taking it off is a complete nightmare.

Myself and my boat partner have spent many nights experimenting with paint removers and gel type removers and basically unless you are prepared to elbow grease it for two weeks your wasting your time. In our case the hull was not even primed and as such taking the antifoul off was almost impossible, still to this day some is caked on and we can't remove it. If you think a power hose will remove it then it must be very fine antifoul, i.e the one designed for 15 knots-.

Another important point is to be careful not to remove the gel coat on the boat assuming its fiberglass. Too much paint remover or rubbing the hull will do that and this would affect your boats performance by 2-3 knots at top end.

I assume you want to remove the antifoul because its either , 1) You don't moor your boat, 2) It will and does reduce your top end speed by 2-4knots especially if patchy or 3) it simply looks terrible as does all antifouling after a few trips.

My advice is you log onto http://www.waterlinerefinishings.com , and speak to one of the staff to best advise you what paint remover/method you should use for your type of hull and which would remove the antifoul the best way.

Best of luck its painful!!!

I wanted to remove the old because it's very lumpy. Clean off, lightly rub down and apply the new. Still had plenty of barnacles on the old!

I used to remove or clean antifouling paint by beaching the boat and getting a deck brush and dabbing it on the sand every couple of strokes. The sand acts as an abraisive and really cuts into the muck. Don't know what it would do to a glass hull though, so professional advice might be best.

Most antifouling paints are loaded with real envionmental nasties, from chemicals to heavy metals, all happily leaching out all the time. This can't be good, especially around piers and anchorages etc. Unless you leave your boat moored all year, it's best to stick with regular paint and just beach and scrub regularly.

After a bit of research, I think the existing antifoul is a hard antifoul, meaning it is held in a resin - which means that my Dilunett won't budge it. Only sanding will do it (or flirt wih danger and use nitromors) . A lot of work, unless I just concentrate on the lumpy bits and then recoat with some new hard antifoul.