Toxic free coating for clean seas.

We all know that the toxins from the coating are a serious threat to the oceans. Up here in the Baltic Sea, it is even worse as the circulation and inflow of fresh salt water are quite limited, but the dilemma is global. We simply have to stop using toxic paint on our hulls as well as the soft surface ones that are dropping microparticles into the water.

Here we are using the scrubbing pad and scrubbing the hull from the pier...with good results. We missed one barnacle warning report earlier this summer so some marks from the ones we scraped off earlier are still there.

After sailing with the fairly new brand SeaBoost under our water line during three seasons, we have to say that the really hard coating (like glass...) just simply works very well. And feels good. We used a good weather day to brush the hull from a pier up here in Stockholm. After having sailed through the Baltic Sea, around the Swedish coastline, up and into the more salty North Sea waters, and then back to Stockholm again.

Yes, these are "cold" Scandinavian waters, compared with warmer waters around the equator, but we had a very warm summer in 2018 and water temperatures up to 20+ degrees at their peaks in 2019 and 2020.

In 2018 and 2019 we cleaned the hull with our hands, a cloth, or a brush. When lifted for the winter in 2018 we used only a soft sponge. During the season of 2019, we cleaned it the same way twice. Then the boat stayed in the water all winter. When we lifted her at the beginning of May this year 2020 we could easily spray her clean with a high-pressure washer.

Here are some images from the three seasons:

Brushing with the scrubbing pad...the canister on the aluminum shaft is filled with air and adds valuable pressure upwards when scrubbing or brushing under water. It has surprisingly powerful pressure which helps a lot for cleaning. If the pressure is too powerful, it is easy to just fill up the canister with some water to reduce the pressure. Check out their power brushes and pads.

Scrubbing or brushing from the pier is fairly easy, but you have to focus and do it systematically so you know exactly which areas have been cleaned. One distraction from a phone call or a social media "ping" and you either have to go back again or take a dive to check what's clean and what's not:-)

The keel is possible to clean with the shafts with brushes and scrubbing pads as well. Of course depending on the size and type of boat/keel...our is fairly small (a 34ft Smaragd), so we usually dive down to finalize the cleaning by hand.

Dead fish skeletons and corals on the keel? Well, it is our toxic statement Ocean Artivism project by talented graffiti artist Julia Maldonado.

Here is the canister on the shaft with a fixed pad holder, Check out their latest versatile model here

After the boat had been in the water for over a full year (from March 2019 until May 2020) we lifted her for some fixes and to do the art painting...

...all we had to do in terms of cleaning, was to spray her with a high-pressure cleaner.

This is from spring 2019. She was sandblasted, painted with epoxy primer, and then painted with Seaboost coating in spring 2018. We launched her in May 2018 on the west coast and lifted her for the winter on December 21st in Stockholm. On that cold winter day, we wiped the hull clean with cold water and a sponge. That was it...and this is exactly how she looked on the morning in March 2019 when she launched into the water again.

This is from late October in 2018...after having sailed for some 4-5 months from Oslo to via Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Estonia and Finland to Stockholm, and cleaned the boat with a brush and soft cloth in mid August, we could easily wipe off the hull with our bare hands.

Earlier in 2018 we cleaned the hull and the SeaBoost Power Brush even fixed the barnacles as they hadn't been there for too long before we noticed them. – – –