To most of us, summer is the time for sailing. When the Florida sun sends the mercury up to 95 degrees is not a favorite time for a major boat project. Farther north, sailors may spend the winter and spring on boat projects, but the day the boat goes over the side, work is forgotten, and the fun begins. The season seems too short to squander on chores.
However, few things can bring the fun of sailing to a screeching halt faster than a severe case of summertime neglect.
As a rule, midseason maintenance is fairly painless. It can be conducted on hot afternoons after a day in the office. It can be done on a lazy Sunday while the spouse and kids are off to the grandparents for an obligatory Sunday visit. Unless you find some big problem, the summary checks and small repairs can actually prevent a larger investment of time a month or a day later.
Below the Water
“Out of sight, out of mind” is the worst attitude you can have toward the bottom of the boat. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, not all antifouling paints are created equal. Nor is the paint that works perfectly well in the Long Island Sound necessarily the right paint to use in the Puget Sound.
Many variables influence the effectiveness of bottom paints other than the amount of biocides they contain. You may not even get the same performance from the same paint on the same hull in the same location from year to year.
Despite manufacturers’ claims, we have never seen a bottom paint that doesn’t at least develop slime over the course of a season. Most develop much more.
Whether you have a sailboat or a power boat, occasional scrubbing of the bottom is an absolute necessity. On power boats, fuel consumption is drastically increased by a foul bottom. On sailboats, even a thin coating of slime will reduce performance.
There are simply no valid rules of thumb for how frequently a bottom should be scrubbed. The serious racing sailboat will have her bottom scrubbed weekly.
A clean bottom makes all the difference in the world in performance. Even the least competitive cruising sailboat in the water of Maine should have the bottom scrubbed once during the course of the season.
Slime and grass usually form first near the waterline. When you can see it there, it’s time to go after the whole bottom. If you don’t want to do it yourself, get a diver. It’s money well spent.
While cleaning the bottom, don’t forget the prop. If you polished the prop thoroughly with ultra-fine sand paper before the boat was launched, most marine growth can be scrubbed off with a stiff brush. Props that are idle most of the time will foul far more quickly than the prop of a power boat used everyday.
A foul prop does more than slow you down under power. It can cause overheating of the engine. Barnacles and other stubborn growth are best removed with a putty knife.
For more information on the maintenance and care of boat surfaces, purchase This Old Boat, 2nd Edition from Practical Sailor.
