No question, just sharing because others might find it useful: I applied Copper Coat to my 2010 Bavaria 40 Cruiser.
My boat had received a fresh layer of soft antifouling once a year for the past 12 years. Underneath it all I discovered what seemed to be a layer of primer, but when we started, we did not know (actually, records from Bavaria themselves and the charter company did not indicate any use of primer).
To get the antifouling off I decided to go with a chemical approach and bought YachtStrip (you can find them on the web). I ordered 10kg for a total of about €650. This would have worked great if not for the primer. After about 36h the chemicals had managed to get through most of the antifouling but failed to remove the primer completely. As a result we had to scrape and grind quite a bit. It took three people about three days to get everything off. Without YachtStrip I estimate it would have taken us about 5 days and even more grinding dust.
The keel we grinded using strong brushes and a powerful grinder. Six hours of grinding got us down to the bare metal which we treated with Fertan and painted with two layers of Hempel Light Primer. Because I had primer left, I used it on the rudder, too. This has to dry for seven days when Copper Coat is applied afterwards.
We washed the hull using a high pressure washer, let it dry and cleaned it with Isopropanol. Then the application of Copper Coat started. In total, we applied 5 layers plus almost a sixth before we ran out of materials. I saved some for the keel and the rudder which I will do this week.
After the first two layers we could still see the gelcoat shine through and the third layer started to cover it all up. Painting took us about 4 hours with three people and was relaxing compared to the sh*it work of getting the old paint off.
With outside temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius we started a new layer immediately after finishing the previous one. We worked using sections and rotated: the person painting the sides of the boat would do the bottom next. The guaranteed every section of the boat will see the same amount of color being applied because people are using different pressure and amounts of paint.
I'm happy with the results, the surface is smooth and I will be back this weekend to paint the remaining parts and do the initial sanding before we put her back into the water.
