Self Eroding Antifoul Paints
Most antifoul paints today erode away over the duration of a boat season. Each time you take your yacht out for a sail a micro layer of antifoul is washed away to expose a new layer that deters marine growth for attaching to your yacht and thus slowing it down when sailing.
At the end of the season you have literately wasted away all you protection and weed, barnacles etc will start to adhere to your yachts hull. Thus we repeat with new paint yearly.
Yacht Speed Is Important Factor
Read the details supplied by the manufacturer of the paint. If your yacht is a performance yacht that can reach speeds of 10 knots then check the antifoul is designed to cope. Motorboats running at 20kts plus have to use a completely different type of antifoul paint commonly known as "hard antifoul".Lymington River Antifoul Choice
Because the Lymington Yacht Haven marina where our yacht lives has a mix of sea water from the Solent and fresh water from the Lymington river the choice of antifoul is even more difficult. This Brackish water confuses the matter further. My suggestion is "ask the locals". The answer in Lymington from those yacht owners with experience will be "use Hempel".
So Which Hempel Antifoul For Lymington & the Solent
With yacht design and hull material narrowing down the choice to the following 3 Hempel antifouls :-Hempel Cruising Performance - Hempel's Cruising Performer is a high performance, self-polishing antifouling providing excellent protection all season.;
Hempel Tiger Xtra - Hempel's Tiger Xtra is a high performance, conventional, erodible antifouling providing excellent protection all season
Hempel Mille NCT - Hempel's Mille NCT is high performance, self-polishing antifouling. Hempel's patented binder technology ensures outstanding fouling protection and colour retention all season.
Above is the manufacturers description of these 3 choices. They all read the same to me so how did I choose ?
Well, price and local knowledge. At Solent Boat Charters we use our yachts a lot.
The NCT is great if your boat sits in the marina a lot.
The Cruising Performance is the cheapest.
We chose Tiger Xtra, priced in the middle and 20 years of our own trial and error has found it to be the best for the Solent and Lymington areas.