What's everyones favorite bottom paint?

Trinidad Blue PRO.

3 years + and going strong.
getting some slime in the Fort Lauderdale canal but few if any barnacles.
Sending a diver down twice a year to soft scrub and sending myself down if in the Bahamas if a cold beer is waiting on the poop deck.

Need a bottom job in the next 6 months, not sure I want to push 4 years on the same paint, but so far holding up good.

(Second time I get 3 years on the Trinidad PRO product, highly recommended)

When we had new boats arriving build in poly-ester we would sand the bottom gelcoat back and apply 2 coats of epoxy. (Don't remember the brand, it was a Japanese make) On top of the epoxy we'd roll coppercoat. This is in my opinion the best option for a GRP yacht in a warm, salt water environment.

When the outer layer of GRP was in vinyl-ester we would only apply coppercoat without barrier coat.

Some customers on the cheap got 2 coats Interprotect with Hempel antifoul.

IMO prop guard works best for stern gear.

I run a Marlow over here on the west coast of FL that has had SeaHawk Cukote on it for 2 years. Very pleased with the results. Sticks to the hull, doesn't come off in huge sheets...Waterline still looks good after divers rubbing on it monthly. Having the paint stick to the wheels are a different story though.

Whatever Beneteau uses, I like better than what Grand Banks uses. How's that for 'tech talk'.

The biggest deciding factor for us is speed. Over 20 knots the ablatives just don't stay on too well even with letter perfect prep and application. On the faster boats Interlux suggested we go to their hard paint (Ultra) and we've had excellent results since. It holds up over 18 months on boats in Florida, NC or up north. We alternate painting the whole bottom and just from the chine up every other haulout. It's just an opinion but I think it holds up better if you have a diver scrub every so often.

On slower boats we use Micron 66 with excellent results as well. We have also been trying the Sea Hawk poducts with good luck but none have been over a year yet so the jury's still out.

That's good to hear; this is the first year I've given it a try and have not pulled her since it was applied to see the results. As proud of the product as they are..I sure hope it does work well.

The teflon coatings are designed for boats that move a lot, several times a week or more. Since they have no antifouling properties at all, they rely on water movement to slough off critters. If the boats sit for any length of time, barnacles, tube worms, and weeds will bore into the coating and gain a foothold and then you will have to call a diver. Water movement also doesn't do much good above the chine or on the transom and these most visible areas will look terrible.

Teflon or silicone coatings work really well on go fast and trailerable boats and I've heard of increases in performance but on in the water boats, not so much.

I have been using Trilux 33 for years and it's great.

On fast boats with a white bottom, I like Hempel's Hard Racing.

The white stays white, not going to that nasty blue/grey/green colour the other ones do. It works well.

Antifoulings

It suprised us too when it started to happen, this boat was a little faster than the Smith but not by much. Everything was applied by the book, barrier coat to CSC (ten years ago). Interlux rep took samples and lab analysis confirmed it was done right. They suggested going to Ultra which was almost unheard of around here on big boats.

Owner wanted to try really slicking the bottom to see if it would get more speed while we were at it so we blasted and faired her down to 320 and sprayed on the barrier/Ultra thinned and smooth. To everyones complete amazement it made no difference whatsoever, not even a tenth of a knot!

It's my understanding that a bottom can be to smooth. It's a laminar flow thing I guess.

As to which bottom paints, I like Trinidad SR as a hard finish and Seahawk Biocop with Bio Boost added as an ablative.

I have always had good luck with PropSpeed and found it well worth the money. In most cases I apply it myself. If it is coming off in the fashion mentioned I agree with J that it is most likely an electrolysis issue and not an issue with the PropSpeed.

Anyone here knows whether there's a product that can be applied to underwater lights and camera's to prevent the lenses from fouling?

Well they do make clear spray on bottom paint. But I think it would not go on optically clear. So it might work on lights but I doubt it would work well on a camera lens.

We just installed underwater lights by OceanLED that supposedly have a coating on the lens that sounds like it works a lot like PropSpeed. In that they claim you can easily wipe off any growth that builds up on the lens. Since the lights were just installed a week ago it's to early to tell if that is true or not.