Release the foul!

This is the way forward, it has to be - instead of covering the boat with toxic paint every year or couple of years, you cover the bottom of the boat in a two part paint which is so slippery nothing in the foul family can really get its toes in. This technology is called foul release and is widely used in shipping and by the military. The reason isn't because they are particularly concerned about the environmental impact of putting copper based paint into the sea - although they recognise that legislation will be coming and it will be good to be ahead of the game - no, it's because the fuel savings on boats treated in this way are gargantuan! Calypso is the first yacht to be treated with a new product by Hempel called Hempasil X3 - a four part process including two coats of epoxy, a tie coat and then the X3. Hempel take the application process extremely seriously, we had to employ a Hempel expert for 3 days to oversee the application and a dedicated sprayer with special airless spray equipment came to do the coating. Our 20sq metres seemed like an absolute doddle, as his last spray job had been a ship in a dry dock of 7000sqm! The product is guaranteed for 10 years, and although it works on the principal that anything green slides off when you move at around 7 knots, it should work fine on Calypso. It's so slippery that a simple rub with a sponge on a pole every so often will remove anything determined enough to try to grow on her hull. We are really intrigued to see how it works, and we'll also be trialling an Ultrasonic Antifouling system recently installed into the boat which can be switched on and off. I'll keep you posted on the next blog "Sailing Calypso".