In the mid-1700’s you could make big money in the tea trade by being the first to reach England from the Far East with the new tea crop. This was a very big deal in those years as the Boston Tea party can attest to. The resulting competition to be the first ship back to England was a virtual race. The prize was a premium price for the fresh tea starved English market.

To meet this big money competition a series of fast ships were built. One of the most famous is the Cutty Sark. While the Cutty Sark never won the first ship back competition she does sport a copper sheathed hull. This high tech (at the time) copper sheathing was used on all of these fast ships. Those wooden ships and iron men knew that a fast ship required a fast hull. The key to a fast hull was keeping the sea growth off the hull, creating the concept of anti-fouling hulls. Barnacles, algae and other sea life find copper objectionable so build up on those fast ship hulls was kept very low.

Today copper, tin and occasionally other substances are used to keep growths off of hulls. In addition, new technologies allow hulls to be much smoother, reducing seams and other flow obstructions. Copper is still the best known anti-fouling material, which keeps growth away. Another great idea is to allow the surface of the boat hull to sluff away slowly taking any growth away with it. Using surfaces with very low drag coefficients like the large molecule finishes developed for “non-stick” cookware is another idea to maximize speed. This technology is often times combined with modern urethanes to make hard long lasting finishes.

So today there are three basic ideas for making a fast boat bottom.
Keep growths away by:

1. Make the boat bottom so smooth that water passing over the boat bottom will carry away most of the build up once the boat is underway.
2. Make growths want to avoid living on bottoms by using copper.
3. Allow the boat bottoms to slough away like a bar of soap taking growth along with them.

For boats that come out of the water on regular basis the best combination for keeping a boat bottom smooth is to allow a smooth copper bottom to slough away growth. This is a great solution when a quick re-coat is practical every few years before the boat goes back into the water. In these cases pressure washing the bottom, a quick wet sanding, and roll on of a new bottom can take just a few hours.

For boats or ships that do not come out of the water often using a durable but smooth bottom is the most practical fast boat bottom. In the 1970’s the US Navy coated 5 ship bottoms with a non-stick finish composed of a hard urethane molecule combined with the same large FCTC molecule popularly known as Teflon. The result showed that at speeds of 10 to 15 knots most growths lost adhesion to ship bottoms. In addition, those growths that did not come off with boat speed could now be pressure washed away rather than grinded off. In Navy testing these boat bottoms out lasted the previous coatings moving re-coats from 30 months to 11.5 years.

A new web site http:www.boat-bottom-paint.com has more detail and boat bottom options for those that want to conserve energy. These boat bottoms in the current fuel market can reduce the drag on any boat bottom thus saving fuel. For those that need to conserve on their boating fuel budget this may be a good option. The technology has proven itself for years in the sailboat racing market. Necessity may make smooth antifouling boat bottoms the standard for all of us boaters in the future.

For a high-resolution photo example, visit www.boat-bottom-paint.com/photos

For more information, contact Harvey Chichester at harvey@Durall Marine Products.com or phone 1-800-466-8910 or 952-888-1488 (24/7).

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