How effective is epoxy/copper type antifoul ?

So we're just about ready to go back in the water and one of the last jobs to do is to refresh the copper anti-foul.

In the normal run of things I wouldn't have thought of using copper anti-foul but it came with the boat for various reasons when we bought her, so we have stuck with it.

Generally it has performed very well. On our piled mooring in Pwllheli the river dumps a generous amount of peaty nutrition from the mountains and then the sea washes benthos passed four times each day.- our neighbour on the mooring - who uses 'traditional' self-eroding anti-foul - moans loudly about the amount of fouling he acquires over the season. If I can I am at the annual haul out and each year so far there has been only a light beard of weed in the first 4 inches, and the remainder has been more or less clear - obviously they are all eating next door ! I wonder too if it is a bit more sustainable - relatively little of the copper seems to go compared to 'traditional' self eroding anti-foul paint and I am assuming that the principle is that it is an unpleasant platform to cling to, so discourages the little fellas, who move on. To the next boat, obviously.

There is some up keep. Each year there are some small flowers of rust grinning through from the cast substrate of the steel keel. Generally I have ground these back to shiny metal with a semi-rigid disc in an angle grinder, but this year tried an abrasive mop in a drill - which was rather less scary / dangerous. This was a good time to wear a good quality respirator - a lesson learnt the hard way from the 1st year, when I felt quite unwell for a couple of days after...

Annual patching to the copper antifoul - the new is showing pink against the background of the green existing coating

To reinstate we use a patching kit from the manufacturers which is about £50 and always arrives very promptly. The materials has to be carefully batched out for the 4 coats required and again, it is important to wear gloves and keep one's fingers out of one's mouth or away from food and drink. Application is by a mini-roller and, I always think, one of the hardest jobs of the re-commissiong process as it involves either stooping uncomfortably low or kneeling on the shingle in the yard. There has always - so far - been just enough mix to get around.

Annabella will be in the water again soon and we'll be using underwater imaging to check on the level of fouling throughout the year.