42ft Cruiser — Full Antifoul Strip Without Gelcoat Damage
Twelve years of layered antifoul stripped off a Beneteau cruiser hull in 3 days, back to the original epoxy barrier coat. Zero gelcoat scoring.
Twelve years of layered antifoul stripped off a Beneteau cruiser hull in 3 days, back to the original epoxy barrier coat. Zero gelcoat scoring.
The brief
Twelve years and seven re-coats of antifoul had built up a textured, cracked surface on the underwater hull of a Beneteau Oceanis 42. The hull was due for a full strip-back ahead of fresh barrier coat and antifoul. Owner had been quoted for sandblasting and was nervous about gelcoat damage; chemical strippers were prohibited at her marina due to water-quality concerns.
The shipwright recommended dry ice. We ran the job over 3 days on hardstand at the local slipway.
The work
The hull was 38 feet of underwater area with antifoul layers ranging from 0.8mm to 1.4mm thick, depending on how the build-up had crested over the years. Layered cracking made the antifoul brittle — easier to remove than freshly-applied paint, but more prone to flaking large pieces.
Day 1. Setup, containment, and the starboard side waterline-down. Full ground-sheeting under the hull captured antifoul flake for proper disposal — marina compliance requires zero water-borne flake. Pressure tuned at around 100-110 PSI to cleanly break the antifoul layers without disturbing the underlying epoxy barrier coat.
Day 2. Port side and the underside. We worked from waterline down to the keel, stepping section by section. The keel itself required a tighter pattern — antifoul builds up thicker in the keel cavity and the curvature meant slower coverage.
Day 3. Bow, stern, transom, and final cleanup. Hand-detail of areas around through-hull fittings and the prop shaft. Ground-sheet flake collected and bagged for disposal.
The result
The hull came back to a clean epoxy barrier coat finish in three days. No gelcoat scoring — verified by the shipwright on close inspection. No osmotic blistering revealed (the hull was actually in better shape than expected after a decade of antifoul).
Marina compliance team was happy with the containment — zero flake into water. Disposal certificate provided as part of our handover pack.
The yacht went straight into fresh barrier coat application and a new antifoul system. The owner sent the photos to the marina’s WhatsApp group and we picked up two more antifoul jobs out of that thread.
“Took the antifoul off our 42-footer without a single mark on the gelcoat. Even the shipwright was impressed.”
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