On 1 Aug 2006 21:59:06 -0700, "Ringmaster" wrote:

My 2 cents. If you will be racing in Gran Prix events your only
choice is Baltoplate, wetsanded and burnished.
Now on to the real world. Assuming you are in salt water and you
are not a cheapskate. If you don't want paint build up use an
ablative. I've had good luck over the years with Awlgrip Alstar Gold
Label. It's pretty good for racing too. Problem with most ablatives
is that they get mushed by the travel lift slings.
This year I had the bottom stripped and 2 coats of Petit's epoxy
barrier coat sprayed on. I then decided to switch bottom paints and
had the yard spray 2 coats of the new Petit Vivid. Vivid is a "hard"
ablative which means it can be wetsanded and burnished. I decided to
hold off on the sanding this year and just burnished the bottom and it
came out great. The boat has been really fast this season. On top of
that the bottom has stayed exceptionally free of slime this season. In
the past when diving I would get a brown stain on the towel. This year
only a little gray paint. That brings up another cool factor about
Vivid. You can mix primary colors to get any number of custom colors
on a color chart that Petit supplies. I mixed 1 part black to 4 parts
white to get a nice light gray. Petit claims Vivid is a true multi
season paint so next year will tell if that is true. I plan on wet
sanding a little in the spring to get rid of the winters oxidation then
burnishing again then launching. So far I'm a happy camper. Good
luck.


Good practical application info. Do you think it could handle in (two
weeks at a time) and out (four weeks at a time), both fresh and salt
with the salt temperatures fairly high, and trailer abrasion?

Frank

Hello:

Just to give another opinion, I called Interlux about timining of bottom paint over their Interprotect 2000E. They recommend that bottom paint be applied within a few hours of the final expoxy coat. When it reaches the "thumbprint" point of dryness, the first coat of bottom paint should be applied to help form a chemical bond. If it has been a few days or weeks (1 week in my case) it is advised to sand (80-100) before application of the bottom paint. Although this won't give as good an adhesive bond. Another option would be to put another coat of expoxy on if hasn't been over two weeks. (This sounds like too much work and expense for me.)

Further they said as long as I was applying an Ablative paint, painting weeks before launch was no problem. They felt timing was an issue when applying "hard" bottom paint only. This isn't what others and my friends tell me, but I guess they should know.

Of course if it wasn't for conflicting advise, we'd get no advise... :-)