In water bottom cleaning

TBarCYa

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Apr 13, 2005
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Does anyone here do their own bottom cleaning? My boat is stored in the water and is bottom painted but the trim tabs and drive are not painted yet. My plan is a scrub brush to get any algae off the bottom paint and a combination of plastic and metal scrapers for the tabs and drive. Any suggestions for other tools? My original plan was to haul the boat in February or March to scrape and paint the tabs and drive but that's been put on hold for now... So I'll clean it this time and next time pay the guy in the marina to do it.
 

Scott Danforth

Grumpy Vintage Moderator still playing with boats
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bud of mine used to scrape his sail boat himself. snow brush / ice scraper works ok.

he used to pull up to passage key, anchor out in about 3' of water during low tide so he could scrape the bottom without using his air tanks

BTW, that aint algae down here in the ICW....
 

TBarCYa

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Apr 13, 2005
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I'm going to try to do the hard scraping at one of the islands in the bay like your friend did. It's just the tabs and drive so it shouldn't be too bad. The SCUBA gear is mainly for using the brush on the bottom to get the soft growth off. There really shouldn't be much since it's ablative paint and I run her every weekend.

From here on I'll be doing it monthly... Or so.
 

Tassie 1

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Apr 13, 2018
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My son is a commercial diver and does our 30 ft cruiser every 6 months or so,
it's the fiddly bits around the shafts and trim that take a bit of time,
just uses what's in the shed at the time
 

TBarCYa

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My son is a commercial diver and does our 30 ft cruiser every 6 months or so,
it's the fiddly bits around the shafts and trim that take a bit of time,
just uses what's in the shed at the time

That's kinda what I was thinking. The guy in the marina that does it had a couple, what looked like, drywall knives about 12" long. That seems excessive to me but I've only ever scraped barnacles out of the water with a 3" knife and it was very hard work.
 

StingrayMike

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Aug 17, 2014
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I keep mine in the water as well, scape off the barnacles and growth atleast once a month, depends on growth and when I can do it. I just used paint scrapers and a screwdriver to get the small areas. I use my scuba tanks. To me, just easier to do it at the dock vice trying to anchor out
 

TBarCYa

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Apr 13, 2005
Messages
781
I keep mine in the water as well, scape off the barnacles and growth atleast once a month, depends on growth and when I can do it. I just used paint scrapers and a screwdriver to get the small areas. I use my scuba tanks. To me, just easier to do it at the dock vice trying to anchor out

The guy in the marina does it in the slip but I a) don't want to step on his toes and b) have never done it with the boat in the water before. Depending on how this one goes I may continue to do it myself or just pay the guy. The trim tabs are pretty bad right now and I'm sure he'd charge me a fortune to do it.
 

Scott Danforth

Grumpy Vintage Moderator still playing with boats
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not to mention, you want some rushing water to wash the barnacles away as you scrape...... those little buggers are almost as itchy as fiberglass work.
 

TBarCYa

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not to mention, you want some rushing water to wash the barnacles away as you scrape...... those little buggers are almost as itchy as fiberglass work.

Fortunately it's not quite warm enough to spend an hour in the water just yet so I'll probably have the wetsuit on. I know from dealing with them on land that they're sharp and itchy... And they suck!
 

TBarCYa

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Apr 13, 2005
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So having scraped barnacles on land and in the water I can say that live barnacles in the water are MUCH easier to remove. I was able to scrape the drive and the tabs in under an hour with much less effort than scraping dead barnacles off. I also was able to dive under the boat and the bottom paint is doing it's job. Nothing to scrape there.
 
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