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This article
reprint is a general discussion of why we use special paints below
the waterline, what general types there are and how they are applied
and maintained. One would think that an article would not be
needed on this, yet over and over we see vessels with bottom paint
that looks like the side of an old barn, patchy, rough, and with
obvious areas where paint has just flaked off in some areas and the
whole thing painted over. When you consider that anything
other than very smooth bottom paint produces a great deal more
frictional drag as it gets rougher and any roughness at all makes
turbulent drag increase much more rapidly you can see that the care
of bottom paint is much more important than any other factor in the
hull. Over and over we have seen people insist on the last
word is highly cut away underbodies to "reduce wetted surface"
combined with more spent on go fast gadgets and fancy winches than
we have ever spent on an entire boat. Yet the paint on the
bottom of the boat could not possibly be any rougher than it is.
This totally negates any gain from reduced wetted surface or
carefully faired hull lines. This is so true that it is
perfectly possible to see a heavy long keel 30' voyaging yacht with
very simple gear and even a moderate sized rig but a very nicely
painted underbody beating the pants off of a 40' racer with more
money in her winches than the other fellow has in the whole vessel. If you are confident that the bottom of your boat could not be smoother and more fair, you may know enough to not need this article. Otherwise this is an inexpensive way to get the basic knowledge to make your boat a lot faster with no more money spent than you already spend each year. ($10.00, 7 pages) (tm) |