Blimey!! There’s a lot of barnacles - PropSpeed Application

We never like having a timeline with the boat. It inevitably means things get rushed or deprioritized, but timelines are hard to completely avoid. With a September 5th deadline to get from Chicago to Buffalo NY so the boat can have its mast removed to transit the Erie Canal, we have faced several prioritization decisions.

One thing we knew we wanted before heading back to salt water was a PropSpeed application to the shaft and propeller. PropSpeed is designed to inhibit growth. One of Nicks many tasks when we got Elysium to the lakes and began our refit was cleaning the barnacles from the propeller and propeller shaft. There were a lot of barnacles living there. Much scraping and scrubbing and sanding was required. Today we were finally at a point to apply the PropSpeed.

The application itself was straightforward, but you have to go really fast. I feel I could have done a better job if I'd have split the job up into parts, doing only the propeller 1st, then moving onto the shaft and strut in the 2nd round. With only 5 minutes for each of the 3 coats, it wasn't as perfect as I'd have liked. Next time she's pulled will be in about 9 months, we are very keen to see how well this product works.

For comparison purposes, here's where we started and ended.

After being in the ocean with no anti fouling and after being power washed. Outlines of the barnacles remained even after power washing.

Before PropSpeed and after scraping and sanding.

After PropSpeed