Painting bottom of the inflatable

[Ken Juul]

To ease my workload this summer, I would like to leave the infatable in the water as much as possible.  To minimize growth I plan on painting the bottom with antifouling paint.  Not sure if I should use ablative or hard.  Any thoughts from those who have been there before?

[Tom P, IMPULSE #233, '86]

Ken & Vicki,

I will start off by saying I have no experience with inflatable dinks, or the bttom painting issue...

But I've got plenty experience with bottom paint...The first thing that comes to mind is that usually at some point in the game (maybe many years), the paint may have to come off before another coat goes on (too much old paint build up)...How will you get the paint off without damaging the inflatable boat???  I'd be pretty scared to go at an expensive rubber boat with an electric sander...I guess there's hand sanding, but WAY labor intensive...

Second; I'm not sure any paint will stand up to the flexing that I believe an inflatable dink bottom sees; epoxy is tough, but I'm not sure it can handle the flexing of the boat...

Third; If you pull the dink out of the water and the bottom gets dry (5-30 days with most paint), the paint looses it's antifouling ability; must paint again...

I don't know; maybe someone knows of a paint made for such an application, or has done it before...
If it were me, I'd deal with the pain of putting it in and out to save the bottom paint issues...Heck, I'd dry sail the C34 to stay away from the bottom work; if I only could afford to do that :-)

Good Luck,
Tom

[jrupinsk]

Petitt makes a bottom paint expressly for inflatables.  It comes with a surface prep solvent.  I have used it for the past few years, recoating every other year.  It does the trick and keeps the marine growth off the bottom.  It does have a tendency to smudge things it rubs against.

Jan & Liz Rupinski
s/v La Vie Dansante
C34mkII #1311
r/v Southwind 35S "Moose"
Cape May, NJ