Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to enjoy a sunny afternoon at Dell Quay Yacht Yard. Whilst there I took a few pictures of some of the boats present using Coppercoat. These boats included the owner of the yards personal fishing boat and a yacht I remember supplying 20 years ago. I was pleased to see and hear how well these boats are performing. I must get out more often! (Please note the boats which are still brown are newly treated and yet to be launched and hence have yet to turn to the normal verdigris colour.)

Having been supplying Coppercoat for almost 20 years, it is increasingly common for us to hear from customers from our “early days”. Whilst we have already published information on boats treated nearly 20 years ago, we were still delighted with the following email recently received from the owner of a Heavenly Twins Catamaran entering its 15th year with Coppercoat:

From: Andy M
Sent: 29 October 2010 15:59
To: AMC Office 

Dear Sirs,

I have attached some pictures of our “Summer Twins” catamaran which we antifouled with “Coppercoat”, supplied by yourselves, 14 years ago. Since then she has had an occasional scrub on a local sand bank but has never been hauled out until now. We have had to haul out this year for other maintenance work, otherwise there would have been no need to haul out.

….

Regards,

Andy M

At todays prices, choosing Coppercoat has cost Andy approximately 13p per day. If he had chosen a conventional antifoul, spending around £400 per year on a lift and re-antifoul (not to mention the hard work of having to paint the boat each year!) which equates to £1.08 per day over the same time period. Proving once again that Coppercoat provides unbeatable value for money!

Below are the pictures Andy sent us, showing his Coppercoated boat.

As you can imagine with boats changing hands over the years, it is difficult to keep track of some of the first boats treated with Coppercoat, nearly 20 years ago. However at the 2010 London Boat Show it was my pleasure to meet up with Robert and Ann Burns, who’s 27ft Albin Vega was treated with Coppercoat in 1993.  Yesterday they were kind enough to send me an email with some pictures of their boat over the years. Below is a copy of the email:

Dear Tim,

You may remember that we spoke to you at the London Boat Show in January about our experience with Copperbot (now Coppercoat) on our 27ft Albin Vega.  You asked us to send you some photos of the hull over the years.  Unfortunately we cannot easily find a number of the pictures from some of the intervening years as they are stored away in boxes in the loft.  However, I have some showing our application of Copperbot in 1993 and one after the first season, one 10 years on and one at the present time, 17 years on.

Initially, I was concerned that we had made a sensible decision in moving from the standard antifouling to this new product, but time has proved what a great choice we made.  The time and expense that we have subsequently saved over the years has been substantial and we have been delighted with the product.  It was guaranteed for 5 years in 1993, with an expectation of 10 years, so we are more than pleased to still be going with the original application 17 years on, with only a rub with wet and dry last year to refresh the surface.  During this period we have sailed extensively around the West Coast of Scotland and over to Ireland.

I look forward to seeing you next year at the Boat Show.

Best wishes

Yours sincerely

Bob and Ann

The cost to Coppercoat an Albin Vega 27 today is £411.25 (inc VAT). This equates to less than £25 per annum, over 17 years, and saves the hassle of having to repaint the hull each season. If you would like a quote for your boat, please contact us.

In the December 2007 edition of Practical Boat Owner, the editor Sarah Norbury extolls the virtues of Coppercoat after a 14-year test on her family boat, a Starlight 39 (moored in the Hamble).

She writes: “One of the most frequently asked questions from PBO readers is “Should I invest in Coppercoat antifouling?” So I thought I’d share with you some news from what might be the longest test of Coppercoat on a yacht there has ever been. When we ordered a new Sadler Starlight 39 just over 14 years ago, we weren’t intending for her to be a copper antifouling test bed, but somehow, that’s what she’s become!

Until this Autumn she’s never been out of the water for more than 12 hours a year, so our 14 year test really is 14 years, not just 14 summers.

As an experiment we painted the rudder in three vertical stripes: one in Coppercoat and two in different top-of-the-range antifoulings. As time went by we regretted this test, beacuse each year we were faced with re-coating the antifouled stripes, whereas the Coppercoat just went on working from year to year. However it did show that ageing Coppercoat performed as well as new antifouling.

Our experience with Coppercoat has been fantastic. In all the 14 years we’ve never had a barnacle, seaweed, nothing except a thin layer of brown slime that simply washes off. It is recommended that each year the Coppercoat should be lightly abraded  to expose fresh copper to the surface, but we have never done this simply because we’ve never had the boat out of the water for long enough and it would be hard work!

The original claim for our Coppercoat was that it would last 10 years and many people were sceptical. Our test proves the doubters wrong and we’re crossing our fingers our Coppercoat will keep doing it’s job for many more years.”

The results have arrived from Coppercoat trials undertaken on two new Sunseeker 82 Yachts in Dubai. When these new boats arrived in Dubai both sported the factory approved conventional anti-foul and achieved the factory speed claims when sea-trialled. Both were then lifted and the anti-foul replaced with Coppercoat. When re-tested, both had gained almost 2 knots of boat speed. The Chairman of Sunseeker Middle East reported “We are amazed and delighted – this scale of increased performance was unexpected and helps to set our boats apart.”

Not only are the boats faster, but more economic too. Running at full speed the choice of Coppercoat proved to save approximately 20 gallons of fuel per hour.

In 1999 the Environment Agency applied Coppercoat to a 10m RIB to test its credentials and feasibility as a ‘green’ anti-foul. In October 2006 the RIB was lifted for the first time and Mark Warmsley, Transport Manager, said: “As the environment agency we are keen to use products that minimize the impact on the marine environment and as a result we decided to try Coppercoat”.

The copper is suspended in epoxy resin which gives the hull extra protection and it doesn’t harm the marine life but just stops adhesion of growth. As a non-leeching, long term anti-foul solution Coppercoat was the obvious choice and its’ proven track record meant we were keen to trial it ourselves. The vessel, a 10mtr RIB has been permanently in the water since June 1999 and to date not had the need to have Coppercoat re-applied.

When the vessel is removed from the water for maintenance, there is no marine life or growth on the hull. If we can minimize the environmental impact of antifouling we will and as a result we will be using Coppercoat on our other vessels in the future.”

Clearly we are delighted with the results of this seven-year trial from the Environment Agency. As no other available anti-fouling is proven to work for seven years from a single treatment, the fact that our environmentally friendly solution has been independently proved to do so once again is particularly pleasing.

June 2007 – W.Trout & Sons (Exeter) have now been instructed to treat the latest Environment Agency boat with Coppercoat also.