Boy, am I ever with you on that! Unfortunately, I am in Alexandria, VA most of the time, and my boat is still in Merritt Island, FL. And you thought you had a long drive to get to your boat!

As things stand now, I can get down there for a couple of weeks several times a year, and in between I will need the help from the diver.

Incidentally, I looked into moving the boat up here, and I did find a good Deale in dockage, but the cost is a lot higher than in Florida. Basically, we can fly down several times a year to spend time on board, for the same cost as dockage on the Chesapeake. This is very attractive in the winter, when it is nasty here. But, it leaves me without a boat up here in the summer.....

I know! We should get TWO Marinettes, a North one and a South one. I am sure Liz will LOVE the idea.....

I used the Alumacoat from Petit last year. I'd say mixed results. Actually I think it worked pretty well but I think I basically didn't use the boat enough. Where the paint was properly applied by the marina very few barnacles. Elsewhere totally loaded. Shafts, Props, and especially my CAPAC reference electrode. It looks like wilson's hair from Castaway! Not sure what to about it.

Anyway the reason I chose the Alumacoat over the Trilux 33 was the copper in the Trilux 33 and the lack of a good barrier coat on my boat. If you read deep enough into the Trilux literature you'll find that it needs to be applied over a barrier coat before being applied to aluminum. It has less copper ions than the other paints but only less. I'm going to try the Alumacoat this year again - but this time I hope to get a better paint job from the marina.

John