Marinette Boat Forum

If you want to informally monitor the bottom during the season, paint the anti-fouling stuff on a piece of metal and hang it off the dock. True, it won't get scrubbed as it would when the boat is moving, but it will give you a rough idea of what's going on underneath when you are docked (which you are most of the time).

The old Joel Corrosion Test! Works great.

Jeff

Last year I switched to a water based Cu free bottom paint on my 39 DC. This year, we are launching with only waterline touch up.

But, the consolation prize is that I spent 3 weeks doing repairs to my Imron paint job. The marina that painted it did a shoddy job of prep and then used foam tape to mount the rail stanchions and façade drip rails resulting in galvanic corrosion around all the stainless mounting screws. So, I had to grind down to metal, etch, chromate prime, fare with epoxy, seal and repaint the decks and cabin sides. Lots of time to swear as I sand! Should have this wrapped up by the weekend.

According to Interlux, Trilux 33 is an ablative coating.

For a 32 Marinette, it seems a professional 2 coat bottom job would be at least $1000
Does this seem in the range?

Trilux IS ablative. As for the 2 coat job, don't know what you mean by professional other than paying someone else to do it. I'm assuming the underlying coats are in good shape. So, a properly supervised high school kid could do the job if you are not able to get under the boat and start rolling (and brushing where the roller isn't the right tool). If the underlying Triluix coat is ok, one coat should do it. But no harm in applying two. The paint is a big expense (but worth it) -- about $200/al and you need about 1 1/2 gals for two coats...maybe a tad more. So there's $400. Should take no more than 2 hours to scuff the surface to prep it..and 6 hrs to do two coats (as I remember, you can apply the 2nd coat in relatively short order. Yard labor would cost about $60/hour. That's $480. Totaling about $900plus a charge, I'm sure -0 there's always a charge for shop supplies. If you hired your neighbors kid, a fair charge for labor would be about $25/hour which knocks a fair amount off the labor cost and you'd buy the two rollers and other misc stuff. Plus a new tee shirt and socks.

If you're able to handle it. your labor is not billable but you'll realize savings. Except foro one year when I was traveling a lot, I did it myself but confess it kept getting less and less interesting.

Have been using Pettit Ultima eco (Copper Free) paint for the past several years. Have been seeing very good results. Our boat was hauled last Friday and the marina staff said that the bottom looked the best out of any boat that they pulled this fall. They also indicated that it was the easiest to power wash clean.
An additional benefit is that the square foot coverage per gallon is greater than Trilux.

Just thought I'd send a quick follow up. I ordered Interlux Pacifica Plus, in red, from James Town Distributors. The can arrived completely dented and damaged from FedEx but did not leak. I applied two coats across the entire bottom and splashed.
The bottom looked great all season and washed off in minutes this fall. Should have no problem this season as it looks completely covered and ready for the spring.
I just can't wait until the ice melts.
Thanks for all the great advise.
Brian