How many gallons of bottom paint ?

To paint a 384 ? Im looking at Trinidad SR than I see Trinidad Pro ? Whats the difference? i hope its just not price !?

I'm Curious too.
I need to haul Sonata this winter and paint. I am totally confused on bottom paints and how much. She was painted last in 2016 I believe. Much has worn away along the waterline.
Mitchell

I normally go through 2.5 gallons to put on two coats and sometimes have a little leftover that I use to put a third coat on the waterline. Can't answer the Trinidad question.

5 quarts has always worked for me.

Jim

Trinidad is a hard nonablative paint. Takes something over a gallon I think, for two coats on my 6 foot draft 382. Has one of the highest copper contents, so will be illegal in some places soon and may be already in some places. SR means slime resistent, some added chemical. Trinidad builds up over time and then you have to remove it and start over. Paint adhesion gets iffy. That happened on my boat after maybe 12 years. I painted almost each year, which I never do anymore. I use it because my boat typically moves from salt to fresh water each year and that helps keep the bottom clean so I don’t have to paint each year. I also have the light build up of algae scrubbed off each year. Can’t do that with ablatives. Well, you can, but then the diver is enveloped in a copper cloud and tHe bottom critters are probably unhappy. On my trip to the tropics Trinidad was very effective keeping all hard growth off. I also had divers scrub the bottom 2 times in a ten months to remove soft growth. I have not painted the bottom in 3 years, but will probably put one coat on this spring. Finally, Practical Sailor has a continuing series of bottom paint tests and reports on how well paints do in northeast US and Florida. A good resource to check.

My boat is a 6-ft draft model. I haul every other year and will be out again in 2019. I have a diver clean the bottom in late December, February and April. I dive and clean the bottom in fresh water in late October. The boat is in SF bay from November through April or May and in anchored in fresh water the other months No sanding by owners is allowed in any of the yards in the SF bay area. I was told years ago that members of a local yacht club were thinning their paints 100% and getting good results. I remained skeptical until 2013 when I decided to give it a try. It works for me with no build up over time. My only quibble is that by the time you brush 2 thin gallons of paint your arms are a little fatigued. Until something else is available or developed Trinidad SR seems to be the preferrred choice here unless you are in competition.

John English , You are using a roller correct ? One coat in the AM do lunch than coat number two ! Im 70 but the draft is only 5'3". To me what ever happens to the very bottom underside of the keel is ok , Im not laying on the dirt to paint under the keel ! Nothing grows there any way !
Yup 2 gallons , I like first gallon red second gallon blue . I always try and go n4 years between haulouts ! 3.5 is more like it here in florida in the river salt water 4 hours than brackish 4hours !

I have the Owner's plan set and used them a few years ago to scale the cross sections and then calculate the bottom surface area. I came up with 300 sq.ft. as an estimate of the surface area below the waterline. That seemed to check out pretty well with the coverage listed on the cans of paint stripper, epoxy primer and bottom paint that I used thereafter.

Most paints will tell you their coverage on the label so you can judge how much to buy for 300 sq.ft. The two I have bought both say 400 sq. ft per gallon. I would say that 1 gallon is enough but not a really generous thickness of application and you have to be careful to spread it out, but it would give you a bit left for a second coat in places like along the waterline.

Lee,
I use a 1/4 inch short nap roller. Paint goes in a 5 gallon bucket with a roller screed. 4" brush for the areas the roller cant get to. I just remembered that the last couple of haul outs I thinned with 3 quarts of brushing thinner and 1 quart of Penetrol. It smooths things out a little better. The bottom of the keel gets painted when they put the boat in the slings for an hour just before lunch break.

Based on this thread, in case you have not seen this in Good Old Boat

A boats bottom revealed
by Steve Ruell
Steve Ruell tackles a bottom paint job on his Morgan 382, but first he must remove the multiple layers. Years and years of antifouling succumb to chemical stripping. Resources: Peel away marine strip is manuffactured by Dumond Chemicals. www.dumondchemicals.com. A search on YouTube using "Dumond Chemicals" or "Marine Strip" will turn up several videos about using the products.

Article Number: 7299
Issue: 117 - November/December 2017
Page No: 44-46