AluminumAlloyBoats.com

First time aluminum boat owner. 20 foot Lifetimer.

The hull up to the waterline is painted black. I keep the boat in saltwater year round. Is it true I can simply repaint the hull yearly, and not have to sand and reprime? So long as I keep the bottom painted hull in good condition? Is once a year a good estimation?

Thanks,

Tom

Chaps should be on his way........"he's the resident Bottom dweller" hahahahahahaha...I mean Bottom man. Not to be confused with the azzman. He was a proctologist on Seinfeld.

I'm actually a hemorrhoid specialist

Welcome to the site, would like to see a pic of your boat.

Can you just recoat? Sure, depending. If the boat was prepped and primed properly when it was first painted and the existing paint is in decent shape, i.e. no cracking, peeling or heavy build-up of paint or marine growth. Pressure washing and sanding is typically required if the old paint has a spent layer on the surface (they most all do), you don't want to apply new paint to a soft, powdery or infirm paint job from a few years ago or a bunch of dried out slime. Get down to the firm stuff, give your new paint something solid to stick to. Make sure you don't use a paint that uses copper in the form of cuprous oxide as the anti-foul ingredient as it can cause your hull to dissolve (think of what an alka-seltzer tablet looks like when you drop it in a glass of water) (in super slow motion that is)

Listen to Bob the resident Hemorrholdal spec. Post up the picks so he can see what you got.

Welcome

Ok thanks guys.

Dude, that is one SWEET little ride.

Yeah, thats nice, is Outcast still in biz? (on edit, I see that its a Lifetimer)

Your paint looks good, if it starts picking up growth i.e. barnacle spat starts to show (little white spots) then you might have a case of great looking paint that has stopped working which can happen if its been out of the water for a long time (depends on what it was painted with). Mother nature will tell you if it needs a fresh application.

Ok, thanks. That pic is actually 6 months old. There are some spots where the paint has been worn away, but no marine growth. Paint has been worn down the middle of the hull, on its leading edge. And on the corners of the stern. I bought sandpaper, primer and bottom paint. I'm going to touch it up and then pull it again in mid summer to see if I need to redo the whole bottom. On the coast of B.C. it's raining 5 out of 7 days in the winter and without a covered work area, it just isn't feasible to do it now, given 5 coats of primer, 5 coats of paint, and the drying time.

Very cool looking vessel.

Soooooooo whats the story on the screen name?????

Hey all. The boat was in the water all winter, got to use it a fair amount. Now there is a 3" wide 4' stripe of those little white barnacles on the port side where the water meets the boat. It looks like they are actually growing just above the bottom paint on the non bottom painted part of the boat (I believe it is a powder coat or just a silver paint) that had dipped below the water line. And there are the odd barnacles on the stern bottom paint.

So what's recommended? Sand the old bottom paint and then a bit higher where there is barnacle growth and starting applying the coats? How imperative is it to do it promptly once barnacles show up?

Thanks guys.

Sounds like your kicker motor is making your port side stern rest a bit too deep. You might want to add a little ballast up forward on the starboard side to see if you can get the painted waterline to come clear of the water. Your boat doesn't need 5 coats of primer and five coats of bottom paint, more like a good scrub, overall light sand, 2 coats of primer like Seahawk 1277 on the bare spots, 2 spot coats of bottom paint on those primered areas then one full coat of bottom paint over the entire boat. Don't apply epoxy primers over old bottom paint.

Ha, that's exactly what's happening, you're good. Ok, then that's what I'll do. I have Intrelux Tri-Lux II for paint and Interlux Primocon for primer as they can be boat locally, though not cheap. Suppose I now need several days of sunny weather.

Can this wait a couple months or should I get on it?

Thanks again.

If your painted areas are picking up barnacles then it would be best to do the job sooner rather than later otherwise you could end up with a real mess on the bottom. You don't need sunny weather, just dry weather. I know Canada is very restrictive on what paints can be sold. My experience is Trilux is not very good at repelling hard growth, Pettit Ultima Eco is better at that, it is compatible with aluminum and should be available up there. A better primer than Primocon would be the Seahawk 1277 mentioned above or Pettit Tie Coat 6627.

In my ongoing search for an aluminum vessel one builder I was talking to recommended Epaint for an antifouling bottom paint for aluminum. Anybody have any experience with it?

I put it on a few boats when it first came out, results were sub-par.

Ok, so I just don't have the space or the time to do the work on it myself, going to take it to have the shop do it after all your good advice :)

Anyways, the shop is telling me that if I don't know what the previous bottom paint was, that it has to be sanded down to bare metal and reprimed and repainted. I'm not able to contact the previous owner. The shop only uses Trilux II. (I called around for the products you mentioned and it's not available in Canada.) Is it true that my hull, which has the bottom paint in decent shape, is going to have to be sanded down to bare metal because I don't know the previous type of bottom paint? Are they that incompatible?

Thanks again.

An ablative like Trilux can be applied over virtually any common bottom paint that is basically clean, well attached to the hull and adequately sanded. No need to remove what you have unless it is peeling, lifting or so degraded that it turns to powder if you rub it with a dry scotch pad. Going to bare metal is serious business (as in expensive) because you not only have to get the old stuff off (completely) as well as insure the metal is adequately profiled by sanding or sandblasting. Then applying the proper primers per manufacturers requirements is also a significant expense all on top of the cost of new bottom paint. Besides, to go through all that just to apply Trilux brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

Haha, that's too funny. Ok, then I'm having it done your way. Really appreciate your input.

I know that this is WAY late for this thread, but want to add that we have EPaint SN-1 on our boat. Had her in the water from July 1 - Oct 1 and no barnacle growth at all on the EPaint. In talking with one of the local boat painters, Epaint ZO doesn't work nearly as well as the SN-1. EPaint claims that the Coast Guard runs SN-1 on 95% of their aluminum hulls - for whatever that's worth.... We're happy with it.