Recently purchased 'Jelignite' which has been lovingly dry-sailed (and hence gel-cost only) but now intend to moor throughout season in Portland Hrbr.

 

Would prefer not to antifoul but cannot commit to taking her out of the water every couple of weeks for a scrub-down, however, will be able to do this once a month and then in between clean via a combination of mask+snorkel and/or cleaning using a length of astro-turf or similar, slung under her.

 

Some queries:

1/ Is it recommended to antifoul the keel and the inaccessable areas, leaving the remainder of the hull to be cleaned as above, or leave the keel for the monthly clean?

2/ Is it OK to put her in the water without first applying an epoxy coating? If not, then can anyone recommend the most suitable product?

 

I Appreciate that 'to antifoul or not' is a 'personal view' topic but any advice would be greatfully received.

 

Regards

 

Chris

 

If you do not Antifoul have you thought about hiring a diver to do it regularly for you, this would be worth investigating.

 

Another thought, it is very easy to pull a J24 right over on her side, if you do not like getting wet you can do it from a jetty, if you have a nice sandy beach and wet/dry suits etc, you can take her in shore and pull her over.

 

You need 4ft to start with but on her side about 2ft, best do it on a rising tide if you are going to take her further in shore to make scrubbing easier.

 

Also you can do 95% of the hull by regularly hauling a strip of carpet over the hull, you could then think about only antifouling the keel and rudder. Haul out or get a diver only when you have left her for more than a couple of weeks.

 

Stuart

Thanks for the advice.

 

I have gone for epoxy priming as that is a definite consensus of opinion and also decided to hard antifoul on the basis that I just don't have the extra time to committ to the regular scrubbing and if I was tempted to increase the interval between scrubs then the fouling is likely to run out of control.... hope I have made the correct decision otherwise I will be having to work hard on her in the next off-season rubbing back to the GC!

 

Regards

 

Chris