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During the 2008 season, we undertook a fairly serious external and internal refit on our Jeaneau 447 'Libertas'. One of the major concerns with any cruising vessel is the yearly or bi-yearly chore of anti-fouling. I had a serious interest with'Libertas' hull protection and after doing a vast amount of research, I decided to invest in the English product 'Coppercoat'. All claims and discussions with the company reps promote anything from immaculate conception to healing the blind when you use this product, and it is priced accordingly, however if even half of the longevity claims were true then it would be 'value-for-dollar'.
One of the requirements of hull preparation is that the hull is stripped back to gelcoat or down to a serious substrate layer. In my case I was advised that the epoxy treatment that my hull has (applied in Trinidad 1998) would be sufficient as a 'sound substrate' and I dutifully lost 5kg's ofblood, sweat and tears during two and half weeks of long-houred toil, (incl. burning out 2 random orbital sanders!) as I sanded off the existing anti-fouling. A truly hideous job that I will never repeat again. Being a kiwi I am somewhat anal about doing the job properly, and the hull preparation was something I was quite proud of!
We followed the manufacturers instructions to the letter, and only mixed 1 litre of the mixture at a time and applied all 14 litres in a continuous, day-long session, so as to provide a'chemical-key' as required by the manufacturers.
The end result was a beautiful copper-coloured hull, and I had no indication that anything was remiss - it hardened as predicted and by the time we relaunched the product appeared stable and cured.
After about 6 weeks I was swimming around the boat and noticed that a few cracks were appearing in the above-water section of the anti-fouling. 'A bit strange I thought ,'and kept my eye on the situation. However things continued to deteriorate and it became obvious that I was experiencing a serious 'crazing' situation above water-line. I sent the company photos of my problem - expecting some attentive technical support, however all I received was a series of patronising phonecalls from their sales-muppets, who brazenly told me there was an incompatibility issue with my epoxy. I had gone to the effort of prising off some of the crazed areas and I found that the paint was well-adhered to my epoxy, however it was causing a deep-seated disfunction between my epoxy treatment and the gelcoat.
I was incensed by this - having asked these very questions prior to purchase - and now being treated like I had some rare form of Ebola. It became apparent very quickly that I would receive nil help or assistance from Coppercoat, and this was partially because they knew I was based in Croatia, and would have no comeback on them due to the geographic seperation.
The final blow is that just prior to leaving my vessel in Turkey, in October 2008, I did a last swim and cleaning under the hull, and noticed that in a forward section, that there were bubbles in the anti-fouling which I could pop, so my worst fears are being realised, and the entire paint-system is now in an advancing state of deterioration. Bear in mind that I paid more than 4 times the coast of a standard anti-fouling protection system, not to mention my preparation time, and I am now seriously pissed off, as it appears that if I am to hardstand the vessel, this will probably cause the entire hull to craze, and there will be no protection to the hull. I am now faced with the real possibility that I will need to strip the entire hull back to the gelcoat again, and use a conventional anti-fouling system.
All I can say is ' Caveat Emptor - May the Buyer Beware'!!! Beware of badly-dressed ugly Poms with bad skin, expounding the virtues of an amzing product called 'Coppercoat' that will protect your boat. These snake-oil salesman (and I've come across many in the subsea chain-measurement business) will sell their babies and Grandmothers to you if it provides them with another pint. Tell your friends, and tell them to tell their friends to avoid this product as you will be oversold and profoundly out-of pocket when this system fails. A curse on Coppercoat and all it's emissaries - said with true World-Marine venom..... 
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