Hull cleaners- post your gadgets!

[fstbttms]

I'm trying to figure out why your drysuit is getting wet on the inside. It's called a drysuit.

Hehe, guess i'm just lucky.

You telling me you've never had a leaky seam or seal or have never sweated enough to get the inside of your suit wet? Sounds like maybe you ain't working hard enough.

 

[fppf]

If I have a leak in my suits, I fix them.
Never really have more water in a dry suit then just a little condensate. Just hang it on a hanger with it unzipped for a few hours and its bone dry.

It needs to be pretty darn cold to hull clean in a dry suit. I will go wet hull cleaning down to 45-50 degrees without an issue. If you need a dry suit your not working hard enough.

Toss all the fancy gadgets, you don't need anything more then a scrub brush; maybe scraper if your on a steel hull with lots of muscles or barnacles. Just swim a little and use your BC to lift you into the hull a little.

 

[fstbttms]

If I have a leak in my suits, I fix them.
Never really have more water in a dry suit then just a little condensate. Just hang it on a hanger with it unzipped for a few hours and its bone dry.

It needs to be pretty darn cold to hull clean in a dry suit. I will go wet hull cleaning down to 45-50 degrees without an issue. If you need a dry suit your not working hard enough.

Toss all the fancy gadgets, you don't need anything more then a scrub brush; maybe scraper if your on a steel hull with lots of muscles or barnacles. Just swim a little and use your BC to lift you into the hull a little.

You clearly don't spend a lot of time cleaning boat bottoms. When you spend 6 or 7 hours a day in sub-60° water, you need a drysuit. If you develop a leak, it may not be bad enough to warrant an immediate repair, or (since a hull cleaner needs his suit every day) you may not have time to repair it. Further, anybody using a scrub brush to clean a boat bottom is doing the boat, its owner, the environment and the industry a disservice. The idea is to keep the paint on the boat and not scrub it off into the water. Indescriminately scrubbing every hull with a scrub brush? Not one of the Best Management Practices we in the California Professional Divers Association use. And in the odd case where a scraper or scrub brush is actually needed to get the bottom clean? The owner needs to be educated about proper boat maintenance and frequency of service, another thing professional hull cleaners do.

 

[fppf]

I see, well, is that not a scrub brush you posted earlier??? How do you suggest you clean a bottom without disturbing any paint?? If its that big of an issue haul the boat into dry dock.

And maybe you need to think that people are different, I work outside in shorts and a Tee shirt when its 50 degrees without an issue as well. I'm from Buffalo NY, its always cold here.

You also need to know that not all boats are the same. Most bottoms I clean are not painted at all. There hard coated and polished high end epoxies. So there is no paint to scrub off, period. And a soft bristled brush does no damage.

My boat owners are very educated. They are mostly racing vessels, which if not perfectly clean will lose. So I have weekly service.

Maybe you should widen your horizons before you climb on your Professional hull cleaning soap box. You started the thread and asked what people are doing.

 

[fppf]

Oh, and I can repair just about anything on my suit over night
Just keep a set of seals, glue, and patches on hand.

 

[fstbttms]

I see, well, is that not a scrub brush you posted earlier??? How do you suggest you clean a bottom without disturbing any paint?? If its that big of an issue haul the boat into dry dock..

In California, it's a very big issue. Here in the Bay Area, boats are cleaned generally 4-6 times a year, racers more frequently of course. In Southern California, 15 cleanings a year is normal. So there is a lot of hull cleaning going on and copper is tops on the list of pollutants the feds are riding state water quality policy makers to reduce. So you can see that hauling every boat, every time it needs cleaning is impractical (if not impossible). This means that hull cleaners need to be aware of what their in-water hull cleaning activities are doing to the environment and use the least abrasive methods possible to clean the hull, because we are under increased pressure and scrutiny from the regulatory power-that-be. Failure to do so could mean the banning of in-water hull cleaning altogether.

And maybe you need to think that people are different, I work outside in shorts and a Tee shirt when its 50 degrees without an issue as well. I'm from Buffalo NY, its always cold here...

OK, you're a stud and I'm a California weather pussy. I admit it. But on the same token don't come into the thread and tell us we don't need drysuits. Because as you say, people are different.

You also need to know that not all boats are the same. Most bottoms I clean are not painted at all. There hard coated and polished high end epoxies. So there is no paint to scrub off, period. And a soft bristled brush does no damage...

Well, you got me there. Fouling conditions in California are such that we don't have any boats here that live in the water without bottom paint.

Maybe you should widen your horizons before you climb on your Professional hull cleaning soap box. You started the thread and asked what people are doing.

OK, admittedly, maybe I responded to you with a bit of attitude. But only because you came into the thread espousing that drysuits are for little girls and every boat can be cleaned with a brush and scraper. I submit that you also should widen your horizons and realize that your methods are also not suitable for all hull cleaners in all areas of the country.

 

[fppf]

Totally agree with you that cleaning in water can shed not so nice chemicals. Boats in general are not the cleanest of objects floating in the water, but they are getting better. Also agree we are in totally different environments. Boats in my area are not in the water all year, most are 6 months tops. So the boats with fouling paint really don't need cleaning. The only growth we have is hair algae and zebra muscles.

The boats I do clean are not designed to be in the water all the time. They are strictly racing vessels, but because of there use find themselves in the water all the time. A pure bread racer will have a polished epoxy bottom to reduce drag in the water. So we do have something in common, using the softest cleaning method possible to get the job done. After a few years of trying different things we found a soft bristle brush does the best job with almost no micro scratches done to the coating. It also removes the least amount of paint from vessels that are painted. And we tried tons of stuff, from wash mits, shammies, all types of scotch brite, and brushes.

I'm a diver first, the enviroment is my primary goal, I enjoy diving, I don't want to wreck it. I also race sail boats, and clean them, but keeping goal one in mind at all times.

I'm not a stud, my wife cleans with me in a wet suit as well We just find if we work hard enough we stay warm even in colder waters. For normal diving I wear a dry suit until 65 degrees. We are also in and out of the water in about an hour most times. Most we have been in the water cleaning was about 3 hours, but still stayed warm.

May I suggest learning dry suit repair and keeping some stuff on hand. It has saved my butt a few times being able to throw on a new seal or patch a leak that night.

See this was educational for both

 

[fstbttms]

May I suggest learning dry suit repair and keeping some stuff on hand. It has saved my butt a few times being able to throw on a new seal or patch a leak that night.

One of the reasons I use a neoprene drysuit is ease of repair. But I'm a procrastinator at heart and will frequently wait on actually doing a repair until the leak is really bothersome. But I too, can mend just about anything overnight. Sometimes the issue is how many beers I have when I get home and how motivated I am when I remember, "Oh sh*t! I have to do a drysuit repair tonight!"

See this was educational for both

Agreed, and glad we came to a civil place on this. I assume you are cleaning boats on Lake Erie? I gotta be honest, I didn't even know Buffalo had a port. :blush:

 

[fppf]

Wow, back in the hay day Buffalo was a major port of call on the great lakes. Back even further it was the gateway to the Erie Canal, which moved the majority of freight around the area. Iron ore was brought in for our steel mills and steel and grain products went out. To this day we still have grain carriers come in for General Mills. They make Cheerio's here

We clean on Erie and sometimes Ontario.

 

[fstbttms]

Call it West Coast geo-centrism. I guess I'm guilty of it.