Hull Blacking

[Malarky]

These boats reporting little corrosion, are likely to be made from steel that is not contaminated with scrap bean tins and suchlike due to their age. Modern steel greatly benefits from protection as the contaminates mean that it will rust away faster. I'm surprised other options and various alloys are not more common these days, especially at the prices a new boat can fetch.

When I started dry-lining boats it was a rare thing, as the older steel was robust enough for it to not make such a vast diffrence to the boat value. Wheras today it is practicly the standard!

[ditchcrawler]

I have been on flutterbye on and off for 6 weeks now, its been super. I am putting my boat in for blacking, it is on the hull suports in the dry dock, So how do they do the bits of the hull touching the suports please.

What is the sort of price to pay, and what do they do for it all.

Mary 1

There is a blog of a boat that has just had the bottom plate blacked, you can see it in the dry dock.

 

http://nbwillawaw.blogspot.com/2009/07/are-you-serious.html

[Tim Lewis]

Where in Rickmansworth? I didn't know of any drydock or crane services there.

 

My mistake, I meant Uxbridge.

 

Tim

[FORTUNATA]

I did my baseplate and crawled under the small gap below the hull with brush and tin of bitumen. It was a nightmarish job and practically unheard of in the boatyard. I did feel it was worth doing for various reasons. If you crawl under the hull you'll see tiny pits in various places and these can be filled in with the blacking although it's a messy messsy job to do.

I don't know what percentage of advantage blacking the hull will give as there are other factors involved in corrosion too. I think it's worth doing but it makes life much easier if you can raise the boat higher. The way I did it I was lying on a damp floor for hours on end getting covered in blacking, on my hair and glasses!

 

When I blacked my boat in the drydock at Uxbridge I intended to do the baseplate but the pressure washer lance was too long and the gap underneath too small for me to get a decent angle to clean it, so I gave up.

They usually black the baseplates of boats at Uxbridge and looked at me with incredulity when I said I wasn't going to do it. Yet other experienced boaters have laughed at me for even contemplating blacking the baseplate.

I'd love to get these people in a room together and bring up the subject.