Advice Needed: To Paint or not to Paint is the question

[Unlimited65]

I have a Sunday Cat without any bottom paint.  Naked. For the past season, i have kept it in a lake in the Northeast. I pull the boat every 3 to 4 weeks - wash and wax the hull each time. Cleaning the hull each pull is not difficult - to be honest it is literally a wipe down. Once pulled, it is out for the week and returns the following weekend. Looking for advice on if I should continue this next season (assuming this is safe to the gelcoat) or get it barrier/bottom painted.

[brackish]

How long is your season?

If it is short, I would continue to do what you are doing.  If it is long I would continue doing what you are doing but consider an investment in a lift rather than spending the money on barrier coat/anti fouling bottom paint. 

Barrier coats are expensive to have done and time consuming if you do them yourself.  And they fail causing repair which is difficult.  Antifouling coats are also expensive and have to be done every one to three years depending on the type and quality of the paint you use.  And they still collect film and growth just more slowly than with your bare hull.  The difference is if you want to pull and clean as you are doing now, you will be wiping off the barrier coat as you clean, particularly the ablative type.

Your boat will perform better doing what you are doing.  Unless you spring for special hard and smooth racing bottom paint all the barriers and anti fouling coats will orange peel to an extent and it will be worse with each seasonal recoat.  That roughness makes a difference in drag.

Your lake will be cleaner with no chemical antifouling to ablate into the water.

I have just completed my haulout which included repairing breaks in the barrier coat, sanding and applying three coats of anti fouling paint.  It was back breaking work, but unfortunately the size of my 23 and the location of the lake dictate that I leave it in the water year round.  If I had your situation, I would not consider painting the bottom.

Just an opinion....

[Unlimited65]

Thanks!!! A lot of good information.
The season is five, maybe six months.
This past season the build-up when I pulled it - was minimal where most wiped off with a towel.
The lake is close to home with good ramps - therefore I don't mind pulling it out each month to spend the time to wash and wax. Let's be honest, it is not that big of a boat to consume a time to do both. The hardest part is getting under the trailer to wax.
I prefer not to paint. I would if the boat was in the water more than the 3-4 weeks between hauls.

[Tom L.]

The Sun Cat is a perfect boat to dry sail (store on the trailer and launch when you want to sail). It is so easy to launch and retrieve. I sailed mine that way for years. If your marina has a handy storage area with ramp where you can launch from and leave the mast up that would be worth looking in to.

Because of the ease to launch/retrieve most Sun Cats have not been bottom coated. A big benefit if you ever decide to sell.

Of course in our particular case we trailed our boat all over Florida. A one hour drive could get us to St Pete or the East Coast ICW or a hole host of inland lakes. We also had added the device that raises the mast from the cockpit with a pull of the rope. Too easy.

Tom L.

[Gerry]

After keeping my CP16 in the Green Bay's water all summer, I pulled it last week.  The unpainted bottom was covered with finger nail sized mussels.  Very difficult to get off.  The bottom now has bottom paint. 

Everything depends on location, time, and your ability and willingness to work. 

[moonlight]

A freshwater lake precludes the need for a barrier coat; osmotic blistering is a sort of reverse osmosis wherein a brine solution concentrates in the glass.  No salt, no brine, no blister.  Maybe there is another freshwater blister; but not my area of expertise.

I've just completed a bottom job on the Islander 36.  Started way too long ago with tenting and sanding the blistered keel down to raw lead (that's Pb for you chemists).  Shouldn't have bothered, we wound up blasting the entire hull a bit later anyway.

Then grind out and fill all the blisters.

Then build up and fair out with 4 coats Interlux 2000E about 5 gallons consumed.

Then two, maybe three coats Micron CSC.  About two gallons.

Pulled all the thru-hulls, replaced with new and of course new bedding.

Now to hook all the plumbing back up, and go overboard.  Oh yeah, put the shaft back in too, with the new prop...

What you've described, wiping every 4 weeks and staying out a week ... I wouldn't change.  Except maybe to try hauling every 8 weeks even if I had to use a light pressure washer.  And if you're truly waxing it everytime you're out...maybe that's part of the ease of maintenance.  Only thing you could do better would be get a kid to do it for $8/hrx8hr while you sip lemonade in the shade.

[Tim Gardner]

A freshwater boat will blister as well, if the boat resides in the water.  The salt is not a requirement. Trust me, I know. had to fix many quarter sized blisters on my 19 over the winter last year.  Hard wooooork!

TG

[brackish]

From what I've read, freshwater boats are MORE vulnerable to blistering than those residing in salt water.  One of the worst salt water hazards is the accumulation of very large barnacles at the waterline.  Can't be completely scraped off, have to be ground off. tricky to get them off without breaking the barrier coat or damaging the gel coat.