Hints on removing bottom paint off a wooden hull (ex Baden Pascoe – MV John Dory)

The best time to do a major paint job on the bottom of your boat is when you have it out for a major or minor refit. Just wait long enough and the timber will shrink from under the years of paint and become very easy to remove. Leave this job to the very last as the paint also holds a little moisture in the planking while you are doing the endless list of other jobs.

I started off by placing tarps under the boat to catch all the old paint and then three of us used Linbide (spelling?) scrapers. My friend Jim Mateer has put a long pipe handle on his with a plug in the end and as you scrape, most of the paint flakes run down the centre of the handle. Just empty it every 5 min or so. He sometimes attaches a vacuum cleaner via a soft vac tube, I tell ya, it works very well, I think with the three of us it took about 6 hours work.
I took 23 kg off John Dory and I am very proud to say none of it went into the sea, I disposed of it at Trans Pacific for about $50.00. Then I sanded the surface and gave it 3 coats of International Primercon, one very diluted coat so that it went into the timber, one medium dilution and them a fairly non
diluted coat. The bottom looked so smooth, not bad for an old fishing boat!!
Then I gave it two hard anti fouls in blue and covered it with two soft antifouls. So, when I go to repaint, I just scrub or wet sand off until I see the blue paint. That way I hope to never have to do this again.

Photo shows  Jack Taylor now 92 (going on 60) & Jim Mateer, in his late 70’s working on John Dory.