Making a meal of the leftovers
Compare and contrast: Andrew measures some surplus cheap and cheerful antifouling, bought in excess for its tempting price, against a ‘suave and sophisticated’ alternative
Boats attract junk as dogs attract fleas,’ a friend once told me. And he was right. The accumulation of onboard gear isn’t usually a problem for home-based cruisers who can haul redundant stuff ashore to haunt their garages, garden sheds or attics. But there’s no such relief for the longdistance sailors who must accommodate whatever they own within the confines of their boat.
For them, the choice is simple: stow or throw.
Of course, much of this pain is self-inflicted. When we first set off from British waters back in 2003, there were only two toolboxes on board. Now there are five. They contain what I consider essential kit, although Chele unsportingly challenges this, suggesting impulse buying. We have also acquired items that are by their very nature awkward. The most glaring examples are our stepladders: one with four steps, the other with two. These now reside supposedly ‘temporarily’ in the forecabin, completely degrading its original role as our guest accommodation. But how temporary can temporary possibly be when there’s no logical alternative?
Particularly invasive are the consumables. These include the appropriate grades of lube oils for the engine and gearbox; ditto for the outboard motors, of which we have two. Then of course you must have grease for the winches and windlass. But perhaps the most intrusive of the space invaders are the cleaning products. Those that won’t fit under the sink live in an old icebox, long since deemed too unhygienic to be used for its original purpose. Along with a bulky tub-type vacuum cleaner (hugely useful where shore power is available) these bring companionship to our stepladders forward.
I suppose it’s inevitable, but one of the things that bugs me is playing host to nearly empty containers. The contents may be close to exhausted, but the receptacles they come in don’t shrink proportionally. This may be tolerable for small items – washing-up liquid, say – but becomes distinctly galling when larger quantities are involved. For example, the lubricating oil for our Yanmar diesel is typically sold in 5lt containers. With each oil change I only use about three-quarters of it, leaving the remainder sloshing around in the bottom. Of course I could save the surplus to be combined at a later date, but unless you can always buy the same brand – difficult when you roam far and wide – there may be some chemical conflicts between the additives each contains.
However, sometimes such situations bring unexpected opportunities. In early 2014, while still in the Mediterranean, Shindig was craned out in the Spanish port of Torrevieja. A friend had recommended a keenly-priced antifouling I had never heard of before (and, alas, bearing a brand name of which I have since forgotten). Tempted by the price, I bought more than we needed at that time. We quit the Mediterranean later that year and sailed to Lanzarote, where I was delighted to note that the hull was as clean as when we had launched. Clearly our inexpensive antifouling was well up to the task, which meant we could defer any further craning costs until we had crossed the Atlantic.
In the meantime, I had learned through the sailing grapevine that antifouling was very expensive in the Caribbean – advice that later proved to be the case. So, knowing we didn’t have enough left of the Spanish brew to do the whole hull, I went to a local chandler in Arrecife and bought more of a well-known brand. Combined with the budget stuff there would be enough for next season.
It later occurred to me that some interesting mileage could be gained by comparing the two – cheap and cheerful against suave and sophisticated, you might say. Which brings us to 2016, with Shindig now ashore in Grenada for the hurricane season. For the purpose of my experiment, I divided the underwater surfaces into four sections. Each brand would have a forward and after patch each. Freshly antifouled (again two coats) we launched on 19 January, lifting out almost exactly six months later, as shown above.
And the results? Well, you can see from the photograph that neither antifouling exactly triumphed – but why? Could it be that different formulations are required for the Mediterranean and Caribbean? Either way, regardless of cost I shall be buying it locally next year. We’ll see how it goes.