Bottom Wax Update

[Timm Miller]

It didn't work for me......four coats of wax (two is recommended)...and I have all kinds of critters growing on my hull. Lost a ton of speed through the water......feels like I have carpet on there. We have had a very warm Spring here on the Chesapeake......so maybe thats why there is so much growth. So, I'll be bottom painting in the Fall.

[Timm Miller]

After speaking to president of the company and explaining to him what I was experiencing...he told me that once a layer of alage and slime gets on, it creates a new surface for other things to grab onto to. It comes off easy enough when you brush it off.......it just takes longer to motor it off. My new location is very to close to the sailing area so I was pretty much just idling out and sailing.....never going fast enough through the water to wash it off. Even people with bottom paint are having the hulls scrapped by divers........time will tell. To answer your question Guest, it was Aurora Marine Bottom Wax.

[dclark]

It didn't work for me......four coats of wax (two is recommended)...and I have all kinds of critters growing on my hull. Lost a ton of speed through the water......feels like I have carpet on there. We have had a very warm Spring here on the Chesapeake......so maybe thats why there is so much growth. So, I'll be bottom painting in the Fall.

Told ya so

Even with bottom paint it's not that easy to keep the growth off. I have it cleaned once a month and it's the best $25 I spend. But it still only takes a couple weeks for algae to be noticibly clinging at the water line. And brushing it off isn't nearly as easy as you'd think by looking at it. An X a few slips down with bottom paint had to be hauled out last year because the undetected growth (mussles they claimed) in the center board trunk evetually kept the board from dropping.

Paint the bottom and have it cleaned monthly. Find someone good and have him drop and clean the CB each time.

[Timm Miller]

You'll come out and clean it right Dave. I just go into the shallows and brush it off.....it comes off very easy. It easier to plan on doing about every two weeks than waiting and letting it build up. A lot of it I'm contributing to a very warm Spring we have experienced in the Mid Atlantic.

[kevin carroll]

I am in San Diego and slipped in Chula Vista - I have my boat bottom cleaned once a month even though I have a new coat of bottom paint. Did not know it was unusual to do this, guy only charges me about $30 bucks a month.

Kevin Carroll

[Timm Miller]

Divers around here get $1.25 a foot. The way I'm looking at it is that scrubbing the hull that has bottom paint will speed up the rate at which the paint wears away.....by sticking with using the wax that doesn't wear away.......if both have to be cleaned anyway.....I'd rather have the wax put on once a season.

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

Here's another choice that I am trying it this summer. Normally I don't worry about the bottom as our boat lives on it's trailer, but this summer it will be in for a month long trip.

Easy On Bottom Wax

You just put on a single thin coat, no buffing required. I'll let you know how it works in a few months. I got it at West Marine.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

In Florida, we get a lot of bottom paint experience. I think having a diver clean it once a month actually extends the life of a coat of bottom paint. With my previous boat, I literally kept it in the water for over 4 years in one stretch by having it cleaned monthly. Everywhere where there was bottom paint, it still looked fine. The only bad places are the bottom of the keel where the paint scrapes off, and the running gear which won't hold paint for long.

With the mac, we have the problem of trailering and beaching which rubs the paint off. With the paint rubbed off in 85-90 degree Florida waters, it won't last 2 weeks without getting some serious hard fouling. You can get away with a month or two in the winter time though. Mostly soft fouling in the colder waters of the winter time.

[Rick Mathews]

We tried the same stuff that Duane is trying this year: Easy-On Boat Coating. I bought it at West Marine, too. The stuff is supposed to be especially good in cold, fresh water, like the Columbia and Willamette rivers where our boat spends most of its time. I have had the boat in the water for a month, and so far the wax has helped. It doesn't keep the algae away entirely, but it accumulates a little slower and so far brushes off pretty easily with a soft deck brush. I try to brush it off once a week. I'm using a Shurhold brush with the curved handle adapter, which allows me to scrub under the boat pretty well from dockside. The transom has always gotten the worst accumulation, and I notice that each time I scrub that the growth is a bit harder to get off, so I expect the wax is wearing off some back there. We plan to take the boat out of the water in a couple weeks, so it will be interesting to see what the bottom looks like at that point.

Last year we used a gizmo called a Dri-Diver to scrub the bottom from the dock once a week. It's basically a 3-foot long floating scrub pad with a curved handle. Worked great and kept the bottom very clean--but it's a lot of exercise using it! The wax allows us to use the soft deck brush, which doesn't require as much elbow grease.

So again, time will tell with the Easy-On wax, but so far it has made the job of keeping the bottom clean easier.

[Rick Mathews]

Since this topic has been dredged up again, and since I see my post in it from a year ago about Easy-On bottom wax, I figure it's about time I followed up with my long-term evaluation of the product.

Basically: Don't buy it. Sorry Duane, I hope it doesn't cause too much trouble for you. It seemed to help some, but only for a month. After that it just made the accumulation worse than without it. The stuff is not as glossy-slick as regular wax, so my theory is that it actually forms a better foundation for algae and other stuff to grab hold of. Before long the deck brush wouldn't faze the accumulation. We returned to using the Dri-Diver, but it was less effective than before, and I think the Easy-On was one reason. When we pulled the boat out, it had the worst accumulation of algae and other plant life we have had since we bought the boat. And for the first time: small blisters at some points. It was very difficult to scrub the growth off after we pulled the boat out. Again, I think the Easy-On was a contributing factor toward that difficulty. So this year I'm back to regular wax. I'll probably use the Dri-Diver to keep the algae off again, although we have to use it about once a week or the accumulation can get away from us. This makes hiring a diver once a month look more attractive!