Bottom Paint & Antifouling

Which bottom paint your boat should actually have

There are five coatings on this page and only one of them is right for your boat. Which one depends on three things: what your hull is made of, whether she comes out of the water, and how fast you run her. That is the whole decision — and we will handle the detail.

Start here

She trailers, or winters ashore

Your hull spends real time in the air, and that rules out the soft coatings. You want something hard enough to be trailered, blocked and washed without damage. That is Hempaspeed TF if you want biocide-free, or Colorkote if you want conventional antifouling.

She stays in the water, and she is fiberglass or wood

This is where the best bottom coating there is goes. A hull that lives in the water is exactly what a fouling release system is built for. That is Hempel Silic One — our default and our recommendation — or commercial-grade Hempel Globic if you want conventional antifouling.

She stays in the water, and she is aluminium or steel

Metal changes the rules, because copper and aluminium do not belong on the same hull. That is Hempel Silic One, which contains no copper at all, or Colorkote, formulated for metal.

Running above 8 knots? Ask us about Hempasil Pro — the sprayed system, and the only coating in our range we spray.

The short version

Silic One is the best bottom coating there is. It goes on any boat that stays in the water. Two years in the water and still looking like the day it went in — we have boats doing that now, and a third-party dive company filmed one of them. The only thing that rules it out is a hull that spends its life out of the water. Everything else on this page exists because not every boat is that boat.

Why the cheap bottom job is the expensive one

There is a reason so many boats get the same mediocre paint every year, and it is not that the paint is good.

Cheap, low-grade antifouling looks excellent in the yard. It goes on bright, it looks like a proper job the day you collect her, and it grows within a year. The yard that applied it sees you again next season, and every season after that, for as long as you own the boat. The paint is not failing. It is working exactly as the business model requires.

We sell the coating that keeps you out of our yard.

Higher performance. The better coatings hold their performance from day one, not just for a season.

Less cleaning. A surface fouling cannot grip needs a wipe, not a scrub. Divers cost money every time they go in.

Fewer haul-outs. This is the big one, and nobody puts it on a quote. Every haul is a lift, a wash, a block and a bill.

And when you do haul, a clean boat is cheaper than a mess. The paint is rarely the expensive part of a bottom job — the labour is. A hull that comes out clean needs washing and coating. A hull that comes out covered in growth, with a failing system underneath, needs all of that plus the hours to deal with it first. You pay for the condition your last coating left her in.

So the cheapest paint on the quote is very rarely the cheapest bottom over five years. It is just the cheapest line item on the day, which is a different thing.

Ask any yard quoting you what they are actually putting on your boat, and how long they expect it to last. A yard that answers immediately and precisely has thought about your boat. One that cannot is telling you something.

We warrant our paint work in writing

Ask any other yard for their written warranty policy before you book. Most of them do not have one.

Ours covers our application workmanship for twelve months, and the remedy includes the haul-out and the relaunch at our yard — the expensive part, and the part that gets left out elsewhere. It transfers to a new owner if you sell her inside the year.

We can publish it because of the training behind it. Essential Shipyard University certifies our applicators before they touch your hull, to a written standard, on the things that decide whether a bottom job lasts.

One thing that applies to every boat here

Every haul-out is pressure washed. It is not an optional extra and it is not a line item you can decline — a coating goes onto a clean hull or it does not go on properly.

And whatever we find when she comes out, we tell you before we start, not after.

Get your figures — tell us the boat and we will tell you which coating she should have, and what it costs.