Putting an end to the annual chore and cost of antifouling

As the days lengthen and the spring flowers bloom, the sailing community increasingly turns its attention to the seemingly never-ending maintenance list that comes with boat ownership

One of the least favoured but inevitable chores is the application of fresh antifoul. Not only can this be time- consuming and expensive, it is genuinely unpleasant, given the solvents (volatile organic compounds) and biocides found in all modern active coatings. Having to dress up in protective clothing simply adds to the general feeling of resentment.

But over the last 30 years, a quiet revolution has been underway, with an ever-increasing number of boat owners ridding themselves of this dreaded annual ritual. While most antifoul coatings have a lifespan of a season or two, time and again we see the well-worn strapline of Coppercoat having a ‘life of 10 years +’ proven to be an understatement. Looking at recent figures from the UK, the typical age at which a treatment of Coppercoat is renewed is 14 years.

And what is the size of this revolution – the tide of people changing from repainting their boats every year, to doing so just once every decade or two? We estimate that almost 100,000 boats in the leisure sector alone are treated with Coppercoat. That’s a lot of people enjoying a drink in the yacht club bar while their fellow members struggle under their boats, rollers in hand, with their overalls and face masks getting increasingly splattered.

While still very much a DIY product, as Coppercoat is applied by roller (without any of the usual unpleasant fumes associated with antifoul paints), this water-based epoxy is now regularly applied by well over 100 professional boat-painting companies across the UK. Indeed, many boatyards report a waiting list for this work. From Dickies Marine Services on the west coast, across the BoatFolk Marinas in the south, to Suffolk Yacht Harbour in the east, and up into Scotland, it is now common to see multiple craft being treated with Coppercoat simultaneously.

As Neil Hughes, Service Coordinator at Dickies Marine, comments, “Clients will see us applying Coppercoat to another boat, ask us about the benefits and costs, and invariably conclude that they would like it also. We are in an almost perpetual cycle of quoting and then treating – boat after boat.”

It is not just the UK sailing fraternity that is benefiting from the use of this time-saving and financially astute choice of antifoul. While Coppercoat is a UK-developed and manufactured product, it enjoys global success, typically being dispatched to over 70 countries every year.

And how does the coating stand up to the rigours of hard sailing and variations in sea conditions around the world? The man behind the Clipper Round the World Race, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, states, “Our current yachts were treated in 2016. After eight years, three full circumnavigations and approximately 120,000 nautical miles of racing each, the boats are due off again, still without any need for repainting.”