PtJudeRI

I was talking to some old salts around my marina last time I was there working on the boat, and one guy who was painting his bottom had told me that he adds cayenne pepper to the paint, to better the antifouling properties. ;?

I have never heard of this before, and although cayenne pepper will usually keep me away from certain dishes, I never thought of this as a good spice for a marine anti-fouling. Has anyone heard of or done this, and if so, is there ar formula that you work off of, or do you just sprinkle a bit for taste??

Lastly, is this a hard or ablative paint thing ;?

Thanks,

Ryan

Mud Runner

The old timers at my old yacht club used to add it to the paint. They also added cuprous oxide to increase the copper content. The local hardware used to stock it and sold it to all the local boat yards. Must have worked because the boats came up clean every year.

285exp

Some years ago, after the EPA banned tin in bottom paint, I heard of the paint mfg's experimenting with that, but I haven't heard much about it since.

http://www.bwi.org/images/basics.pdf

SHAMROCK69

I thought there was a bottom paint with it in it a couple of years back that caused all kinds of damage to bottoms. I think they went belly up and BoatU.S. Consumer affairs investigated. Don't remember all the details or if the pepper caused the problems.

ScarabChris

Yup...it has been done for many years. And like Mud Runner said you can also add cuprous oxide if you can find it. Though I think its against EPA regs.

Get all your pennies from your change jars and grind them up into a powder and mix it with the paint. Copper will kill pretty much any marine growth, ir in this case make it impossible to grow.

SeaMonkey1

I've heard this works, never tired it though. If you do it, let us know how it works.

285exp

Since 1982 pennies have been made of 97.5% zinc, with 2.5% copper plating. You won't get much benefit from ground up pennies.

rwidman

You realize of course, pennies have been made of copper clad zinc for many years now.

rwidman

I suspect that if it really worked, paint manufacturers would be doing it already. They are pretty competitive.

As for adding copper to comercial formulations, I suspect you're better off just paying more for better paint.

LurkingSailor

Practical Sailor has yearly bottom paint performance reviews and in the March, 2009 edition they note:I can't give a link, since most of PS's content is behind the subscriber firewall, but they seem to do a thorough job with their evaluations.

kerno

Several year ago, i had a problem with a neighbor's dog using my sidewalk to relieve itself. I got a suggestion to sprinkle Cayenne pepper on it to keep the dog away. Maybe the dog stayed away, but snails came from adjacent yards and were partyng down in the pepper. I suspect some marine organisms may actually like it.

rwidman

Organic gardeners often suggest cayenne pepper to protect plants against insects and other pests. It's non toxic to humans and "organic". Safer than poisons but you have to reapply it every few days.

As for the sidewalk, you would have to apply pepper to one portion of the sidewalk and none to another portion to even begin to draw a conclusion. For a boat, as in the test above, you would have to paint part of the bottom with pepper laced paint and the other with straight paint.

PtJudeRI

Well I guess I can leave the pepper in the spice rack then....

As for the bottom paint, I am going to try New Paint this year.... going to give the BlueWater copper 45 ablative a try... at $108 shipped to your door, its a tough one to pass on... Boatzincs.com has the best price on it, and they are great people over there. Hoping for the best! I will try and post photos if any of note come by.

ScarabChris

Ok penny police, I guess he will just have to rip the copper piping out of his house to mix in his paint.

Soundbounder

Good point!!!!

OReely

I believe the bottom paint with the pepper was called Hot Shot or something similar. It had pure capsaicin (the hot in hot peppers) mixed in. Cayenne pepper is mild in comparison. I think the lawsuits were because it didn't work as promised.

Also, adding anything to bottom paint is illegal. It is a regulated substance that must pass federal guidelines. Proceed at your own risk. I've heard of people adding powdered copper that they found on the internet to bottom paint. I don't know if it works any better.

tkbmech

It Works, I add it to my bottom paint EVERY time, it will keep the crusty things off the bottom, I even tested it on one boat, painted the bottom with the treated paint, and painted the rudders with the same paint without the pepper, when pulled out of the water the guys at the marina could not beleive it, bottom was clean, rudders were crusty as hell.......IT WORKS

RABBITFISH

It's amazint all the little things you can pick up here!!! I always thaought pennies were made of copper..........Just goes to show.....;?

dman

My son did a science fair project on this many years ago. He painted a piece of fiberglass with a cayenne pepper mixture, one with a black pepper mixture and one plain, then hung all three in the harbor by our boat. The cayenne pepper mix worked best in inhibiting growth. The paint was not ablative.

I don't know how well this would work in a practical application, but he did win 1st place. i sold the 30' and now have 2 trailer boats plus a skiff and a sailboat. I think I downsized, but if you add them all together I have 80 feet of boats! Oh well.

radbrad

add some oysters, cut off blujeans and some PBR's then you have your own redneck yat club.