Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

[wellsc1]

Is it recommended to wax the bottom of the hull too? It's got to be back-breaking and arm-numbing! How do you do it?

If I do, will the boat ever slow down (joke)?

 

[lucky7]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

makes cleaning it up easier...

 

[ziggy]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

Is it recommended to wax the bottom of the hull too?

i do that once or so a year. the whole bottom, ft to back. agree with lucky7 that it makes clean up easier + it gives me a chance to go over it to see any possible defects in detail.

It's got to be back-breaking and arm-numbing!

yep. it is a drag to do.

How do you do it?

on my back crawling along my white rock driveway. wax on, wax off, by hand.

If I do, will the boat ever slow down (joke)?

from the way i get it. waxed may slow ya down a bit. has to do with surface tension and adhesion to the water. with a slightly rough bottom surface (a clean, non waxed surface), it may break up that adhesion to the water and actually allow more speed.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

Never wax. waste of time IMHO. I use hull cleaner if the bottom starts to look dirty. Takes all of 10 minutes to do

 

[H20Rat]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

I notice the speed hit on my jetski when I used to wax the bottom. was 1 or 2 mph off from norm. It only usually lasted about 30 minutes before the top end came back to what it normally is, so I'm assuming that is how long the wax was able to hang on before being pressure washed off at 50 mph.

on a boat, i'd be surprised if you actually saw any mph change though...

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

agreed. total waste of time. May as well wax your bilge too

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

I'll still wax every bit of fiberglass on my boat. I honestly don't care if I lose 2mph because of surface tension, etc. It makes the surface nice and smooth, I don't have to resort to ugly bottom paint, and it keeps everything nice and clean.

 

[stylesabu]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

i guess i won't be wasting my time

 

[wellsc1]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

Thanks for the number of replies. I won't wax the bottom. Hull cleaner is easier and I don't need to slow it down. Up to 2 mph faster may get me to the honey hole before the big one wonders off.

 

[caldwell54]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

My experience is that waxing the bottom makes my fiberglass boats slightly faster, not slower. I do wax once a year on bottom, or every other year. It is not a fun job. I do it in my paved driveway using an automotive creeper to lay on and move around. Do it by hand as well. A good opportunity to get it nice and clean and see what shape the bottom is in as described in earlier threads.

Good luck

 

[DYLBOSS]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

I HAVE heard that waxing the bottom does cause drag in the water. The previous owner of my boat left nasty unmaintained bottom paint on there. I had no choice but to replace it with something (I don't slip the boat). I replaced it with VC Performance Epoxy. Best of both worlds, kind of....

PITA in all imaginable ways. Never want to do that again, but happy with the outcome.

 

[This_lil_fishy]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

Once a year I do the whole boat, well, except the parts hidden by the bunks on the trailer. Perhaps this year I will just do the parts above the water line. Now that I think about it, makes perfect sense that the wax will be all gone after a short WOT run...that's a lot of friction on the water.

ian

 

[grego]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

If you wax the leading edge of an aircraft wing, you will get another 3 miles per hour. If you wax the blades on a gyrogopter you can get an extra 10 rpm. I think, that I will keep waxing the hull of my boat!

 

[mattpyle]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

If you wax the leading edge of an aircraft wing, you will get another 3 miles per hour. If you wax the blades on a gyrogopter you can get an extra 10 rpm. I think, that I will keep waxing the hull of my boat!

Water and air have totally different properties. Technically yes, wax on a boat can slow it down, wether noticable or not. Really, it doesn't matter on something that big in the water. You'll never notice the difference.

 

[DianneB]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

I have never tried waxing a boat but I used to use Turtle Wax on an aluminium canoe and it made a noticeable difference in how easy it slipped through the water - after waxing it was like it was on ball bearings! But maybe weight/speed make a difference....

 

[NZjohnson90]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

I bought a polishing pad attachment for my angle grinder for $10, and therefor it only took maybe an hour to do the whole underside. Would hate to do it by hand. I did all I could in situ, then moved the boat back on the trailer 2ft so i could reach the rest. I used sepitone fibreglass cut n polish.

I think what everyone is talking about is the suction caused by a smooth surface trying to break contact with water. For example if you lay a sq ft of polished fibreglass in the bath and try to lift it out quick it will 'stick' to the water as it 'sucks' onto the surface. If you put dimples or rough surface on the fibreglass you could lift it off the water much more easily.

If anyone remembers that was the theory behind those phaser things they used to put on wakeboards back in the day.

Guess it's a sound theory, personally I would think it makes no noticeable difference whatsoever on a boat, It was well worth it just for the transformation, how good the boat looks on the trailer.

 

[ovrrdrive]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

I never do it... I wax the sides and top of the boat to protect from the sun and the ultraviolet rays that turn the gel into chalk. That isn't a problem on the bottom of the boat.

 

[kenmyfam]

Re: Wax the bottom of hull, or not?

Every season for the reasons of being easier to clean afterward.
Just my 2 cents though. 25 year old boat with the bottom still like new. Not changing habits now.