What has been your process for cleaning boat bottom?
Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 10:48 am
All,
There's a thread that piqued my interest in creating this thread ("Bare Bottom").
In one of the last posted threads FastJeff detailed how he had left his (previous) boat sit for some time and he found it necessary to anchor in shallow water and spend some time (hour + ?) scraping the bottom of the boat. I believe his boat was used in salt/brackish water which has its own hull-hugging critters/stuff.
A bit of background:
My boat, like GregM's, is located in the Ohio River. Under most circumstances, it's pulled at the end of the season, bottom pressure washed and she's on blocks until the next season. This year was different. We moved to a different marina (basically a gentleman owning farmland that had a backwater creek of the Ohio that he rents out 50' wide swaths of shoreline. You own the dock. The dock we acquired with the vacant land slot needed major work. As a consequence we anchored the boat at the dock and did not pull her this winter.
And that's where the story goes sideways some...
Prior to putting the boat in the water in the Spring of 2019, I applied 2 coats of Sea Hawk's Mission Bay bottom paint (pressure washing the previous fall had blasted off most of the previous (2 year old?) Interlux bottom paint [which I had used before and found the same type of condition - understood it's an ablative paint but pressure washing always resulted in some of the bottom paint coming off <owner's fault... >]). So she went into the water with 2 new coats of bottom paint.
While she's been in the water at the new marina, I have noticed a lot of stringy moss growth along the in water parts of the hull. I'm guessing that this growth extends under the boat as well.
I have 3 options:
1. Have the boat pulled, scrub the bottom (pressure washing could be done, but trying to avoid the expense/time of roughing up bottom and repainting), and put her back in the water (possibly the same day?) Cost (I'm told, could be 400.00).
2. Find a way of cleaning/scraping the bottom as Jeff did. The issue here (as anyone cruising the Ohio will attest to) is that MOST parts of the shoreline are knee deep, or more, in silty muck making movement under the boat difficult. There are some sand/gravel bars but they are few and far between.
3. Leave things as they are, cruise and hope the action of the water against the growth will eventually cause the growth (as a result of last year's bottom paint job?) to come loose/wear away.
What have other members of the forum done in such cases? Or, what comments do you have, Pro or Con?
Thanks,
Bill
There's a thread that piqued my interest in creating this thread ("Bare Bottom").
In one of the last posted threads FastJeff detailed how he had left his (previous) boat sit for some time and he found it necessary to anchor in shallow water and spend some time (hour + ?) scraping the bottom of the boat. I believe his boat was used in salt/brackish water which has its own hull-hugging critters/stuff.
A bit of background:
My boat, like GregM's, is located in the Ohio River. Under most circumstances, it's pulled at the end of the season, bottom pressure washed and she's on blocks until the next season. This year was different. We moved to a different marina (basically a gentleman owning farmland that had a backwater creek of the Ohio that he rents out 50' wide swaths of shoreline. You own the dock. The dock we acquired with the vacant land slot needed major work. As a consequence we anchored the boat at the dock and did not pull her this winter.
And that's where the story goes sideways some...
Prior to putting the boat in the water in the Spring of 2019, I applied 2 coats of Sea Hawk's Mission Bay bottom paint (pressure washing the previous fall had blasted off most of the previous (2 year old?) Interlux bottom paint [which I had used before and found the same type of condition - understood it's an ablative paint but pressure washing always resulted in some of the bottom paint coming off <owner's fault... >]). So she went into the water with 2 new coats of bottom paint.
While she's been in the water at the new marina, I have noticed a lot of stringy moss growth along the in water parts of the hull. I'm guessing that this growth extends under the boat as well.
I have 3 options:
1. Have the boat pulled, scrub the bottom (pressure washing could be done, but trying to avoid the expense/time of roughing up bottom and repainting), and put her back in the water (possibly the same day?) Cost (I'm told, could be 400.00).
2. Find a way of cleaning/scraping the bottom as Jeff did. The issue here (as anyone cruising the Ohio will attest to) is that MOST parts of the shoreline are knee deep, or more, in silty muck making movement under the boat difficult. There are some sand/gravel bars but they are few and far between.
3. Leave things as they are, cruise and hope the action of the water against the growth will eventually cause the growth (as a result of last year's bottom paint job?) to come loose/wear away.
What have other members of the forum done in such cases? Or, what comments do you have, Pro or Con?
Thanks,
Bill