Benefits of Gold Coast AntiFouling Services
Without antifouling protection, seaweed, barnacles, and other organisms eventually cover the underwater part of your vessel. This causes drag resistance, which reduces the speed and fuel efficiency of your boat – not to mention that it looks downright ugly! Left long enough, it can cause structural defects with your boat. Some estimates place species that want to set up home on your boat’s hull as high as 4,000 species, many of which like to set up colonies.
Antifouling paint is a very special kind of marine paint that contain Biocides. The porous nature of anti-fouling paint allow the slow release of biocides in the water, killing off organisms and other plant life that are trying to set up home on your boats hull. Conventional paint does not have biocides in it and simply provides a physical barrier between your boat and marine organisms; eventually, this physical barrier is breached and marine life starts to accumulate on your hull.
In addition, some marine life – barnacles, hard shellfish, algae, mussels etc – can actually penetrate regular paint and cause costly cracks in the underlying wood or fibreglass surface; antifouling paint prevents this. Of course, they can also block essential water inlets and outlets and cause damage to rudders, the keel, propellers etc.
While most paints lack durability in a marine environment, antifouling paint is designed for a marine enviroment and provides a secure barrier to barnacles, seaweed and other marine pests.
Antifouling protection protects your boat, improves its speed through the water, saves on fuel, extends the lifespan of your vessel. However, antifouling is not a one-off job, it requires repeating every few years.
We will haul your vessel and check for damage to hull and report back to you on any repairs required before we can begin antifouling. We need to sand and prime befoe applying antifouling paint.