Peelaway paint removal paste
Could the new Peelaway Marine system be the environmentally friendly way to remove old antifouling? David Parker tested it
Peelaway Marine is a patented paste and plastic poultice system you spread on antifouling so that, in theory, after a period of time the whole coating can be removed. It can be used on other paints and varnishes, has no fumes or toxic particles, and can be used on GRP, wood, metal and concrete. Because you can collect up all the old antifouling residue it also reduces boatyard contamination risk.
Now the test was far from an unqualified success – squally wind and rain played a part – but despite that I think the manufacturer is onto a winner. It certainly attracted a lot of attention and the people that really knew their stuff could see the potential, as could I. Here’s how it went:
Read the instructions
When applying any product it’s important to follow the maker’s instructions but my results the first time weren’t great and I think it’s only fair to report my progress exactly as it happened to help anyone else considering using the system. The makers say: “External use may be affected by extremes of weather and treated areas should be monitored and further protected if required.” I tried it in what turned out to be an unseasonally wet April which may well have affected the results I got on my first attempt.
So I called on some advice from the distributors. Because of the curvature of the hull the test patches were not directly exposed to rain but Peter Bambury from
Bainbridge suggested it could still have been the very wet weather which was the problem. He suggested sealing the edges completely with tape to prevent damp air and humidity affecting things. He kindly came along to oversee some more tests.
Test first
Don’t start the full application until you’ve successfully stripped a test area or two. Small test areas are much easier to tackle than large sections of hull where other factors such as negotiating awkward corners, curves and hull fittings come into play. Use the test areas to get a feel for applying the paste smoothly and efficiently. I’d also recommend that even when tackling a larger area, try and make the first main application as manageable as possible.
Thickness levels of the paste can be between 1mm and 3mm thick but I went for the maximum thickness everywhere. Of all the test areas that I tried, the antifouling came away most easily on the keel where the coating was thinnest.
What I learned
The product did remove the antifouling but there was still a lot of scraping and cleaning up to do. Also as the weight of residue on the plastic sheet increased the more saggy it got. In the end sections just ripped away from the hull and spilled the residue on to the floor. You definitely need gloves for this part of the clean up.
I found that having adjacent sheets was a mistake because one pulled away the other – so ideally do the boat section by section.
Be prepared to wet or dry sand after using the paste. This might not be the case on a thin build-up of antifouling but it was with me. If you can pick fine, dry weather it will make your life a lot easier. Also, if it’s windy, you’ll be chasing flyaway plastic poultice sheets around the yard.
The product can also be diluted with water and applied by airless spray. This would be very interesting to experiment with, especially on more inaccessible and awkward areas of a hull.
Finally, if you want to completely strip the hull, give yourself plenty of time. I didn’t plan on the additional scraping, sanding and cleaning but as regards stripping the coating it did the job.