Bottoms Up

Right before we went to St Petersburg, we had finished doing the bottom job.  In a previous post, I had mentioned that Frank had gotten the bottom down to bare glass.  This was because we wanted to slap on a new barrier coat as the old one had failed.  We used Interlux Interprotect 2000 as the barrier coat.  It took 8 gallons, with one gallon being used on each side per coat, this gave us a total of 4 coats.  We alternated between white and gray to ensure full coverage of each coat.   Interprotect 2000 is super easy to use even though it's a 2-part system.  There is no sanding required between coats (up to 6 months), and overcoat time is nice and short, allowing us to get all the coats done in 2 days.  This meant that we were able to get 3 coats on the first day and the final coat of barrier as well as the first coat of anti-fouling the 2nd day. The first coat of antifouling paint has to go on while the last coat of Interprotect is still tacky.  Interlux was nice enough to put a suggested schedule on the box, to help with timing, which we roughly followed.  Because of the size of the surface area that we were painting, by the time we finished with one coat, it was time to mix the paint, wait 20 minutes (induction time), and go right into the next coat.  Frank was the painter, and I helped to spot and mix paint.  A quick tip when doing this is, invest in the more expensive roller holder and pans. The cheap ones fell apart halfway through our first coat!!  

First it turns white...

Next up, grey….

Lunch break with clean gloves on 

White again...

For our bottom paint, we used 5 gallons of International Interspeed 640 that we were able to get for $250 total at Sailor's Exchange here in town.  For those not familiar with bottom paint costs, a single gallon of Interlux Micron CSC from West Marine, which is a close comparison to Interspeed 640, will run you $225.  This comes out to a $875 saving in bottom paint alone.  We were lucky enough to score some before they sold out as you can imagine it goes quickly when they get it in stock. They are able to sell it at such a low cost as they buy the surplus from large jobs on US Navy ships and large cargo tankers.  It is an industrial product that is not usually sold to the general public as it is exceptionally toxic to work with.  Fun… We have talked with a bunch of other boaters that have used Interspeed and hear that they average 3-4 years with 2 coats before having to reapply.  Since we didn't want to store the extra paint, we just went ahead and used all 5 gallons, which gave us just about 3 coats. We will have to wait and see how long it holds up.  

Tough job….

Final  coat of grey, immediately followed by anti-fouling