On 5 Nov 2018, at 4:17 am, StoneTool owly@ttc-cmc.net [harryproa] <harryproa@yahoogroups.com.au> wrote:

Rick:

    Fouling is a significant enough issue on all voyaging boats as to warrant developing a good strategy for dealing with it effectively.    In the current reenactment if that is the word, of the famous Golden Globe Race of 50 years ago, the competitors are spread across about 6000 miles of ocean, the spread being at least partly due to fouling with goosneck barnacles &c.    The lead boat, in addition to being sailed by a man with many years of sailing in those conditions, also applied a final hard coating of bottom paint to which he added a great deal of copper powder, which has proven far more effective than the current crop of antifouling paints which are not preventing growth, though the course is largely in the sub arctic waters of the 40's.

    No multihulls were allowed to participate, though there were a number of them in the '68 race.  It would seem to me that the shallow draft of a multihull would be a big advantage here, as a lot of scrubbing would be possible from an RIB or whatever without personally entering the water.   A number of the competitors have taken advantage of being  becalmed to scrub their hulls.

                                                                                                                                                                        H.W.