Bottom paint vs armoredhull boat shield

[soshe1]

Hi Guys,

I have a 2011 2310wa with no bottom paint. Boat is currently kept on the trailer but I am now looking into slipping. Several people in my area (San Diego) are using these armoredhull boat liners to keep growth off the boat: http://armoredhull.com/. Most of the people keep their fresh water hose on a timer to trickle in fresh water a few times a day to try to keep the salinity levels down. Between the freshwater and chlorine tablets they appear to work pretty well.

This appears to be a substitute for bottom paint to avoid growth, however, do you think bottom paint is still needed to keep gelcoat from blistering?

Any feedback is appreciated

Josh

 

[DaleH]

This appears to be a substitute for bottom paint to avoid growth, however, do you think bottom paint is still needed to keep gelcoat from blistering?

While I never even had heard of that option, it does look pretty cool!

That said, bottom paint itself will not prevent blisters on a hull. I personally wouldn't worry about them w/ a premium tier hull layup like a Parker.

 

[kidfreediver]

I see that stuff on the fishing channel all the time looks pretty decent and suppose to make ur fuel economy better because it's more slick

 

[Angus]

Looked it over last night, seems to be interesting. Its kind of like I want the guy next to me at the Marina to get it first so I can check it out before I spend the money, but seems like a cool option as I keep my boat in the water all the time, except do pull it out for Winter to clean, etc.

 

[HOTPURSUIT]

I would imagine that now you would have the maintanence of dealing with the growth and barnicles on the bottom of the armoured hull. My question would be if I left it in the water for a couple of years, would it weigh a ton. What s the maintanence ?

 

[TWOBOATER]

I'll stick with a barrier coat and a good ablative paint. looks like it'd be a PITA in and out of the slip, high-maintenance etc. I wouldn't want to pull out and clean that "pool" either!

 

[GaryM]

I'm not a big fan. The armoured hull works by creating a tub for the boat to sit in and then you add chlorine to the tub to kill whatever is trapped inside of it. When you want to use your boat you dump the tub and all that chlorine you were using to kill growth goes into your local waters. Sure it gets diluted and in the grand scheme of things your not causing a catastrophic event, but I'm just not big on dumping chlorine into the water every time I use my boat.

 

[soshe1]

After a little more research I found out they cost about $2500 for a 24' model. A few people I talked to said they have had theirs for 5-6 years and seems to be 50/50 on being worth the money or not. They had quite a bit of growth on the outside, however didn't really matter cause being in San Diego they never have to pull them out. Supposedly if you move slips you can tow to your new spot.

One guy I talked to said his lower unit on an I/0 ripped up his liner in the last storm we had. The floating dock broke loose which caused the damage to the liner and was $1500 to repair.

Starting to look into other bottom coat options. Anybody ever use any of this stuff for bottom coating?: http://www.seacoat.com/products.html I heard its pretty popular with the go fast boats. Its harder than normal ablative bottom paint and keeps a semi-gloss finish for up to 8 years, holds up well on the trailer, and still looks good. Any feedback on this or similar products?

 

[Angus]

I think I'll stick with Gary on this one. Already to much stuff being dumped into the water.