Pettit Ultima Buying Opportunity

[Pete]

Been using Pettit Ultima Ablative bottom paint ever since it came to market. Been pleased with the results. With two coats overall and three at the waterline, I get two years with the help of a diver a couple of times a year. It was also #1 in the Powerboats Report test a couple years back. So why the post? Pettit has discontinued the paint and West Marine is closing out their inventory, at $161 a gallon. Not a bad price if you will need some in the future.

Now for a little history of the product, and how Pettit is not helping me remain a loyal customer. Up until 2006 the copper content of the paint was 60%. In 2006 a little yellow sun burst appeared on the label with the message that it had new brighter colors. This was code for a decrease in the copper content to 40%, and a price increase. Now Pettit is replacing that product with Pettit Ultima Fusion. I do not have the chemical specs, but Jamestown Distributors has it on their site at $398 a gallon. Take a look at: http://www.jamestowndistributors.co...ine=adwords!6456&keyword=pettit_ultima_fusion

Bottom line, Pettit has gone from a 60% copper multiseason paint to a 40% copper mulitseason paint, both retailing just under $200 a gallon, to a single season paint retailing for $398. Nice going Pettit.

Pete

 

[J's Dream]

Pete,

That is a good price. However, I have been using and am happy with Pettit's Trinidad SR. A hard bottom paint, but will get me two or three years without a problem. The price is MUCH less than the new Fusion...and Trinidad SR has 70% copper. I've looked around, and couldn't do any better than that...except in the Bahamas, but thats not legal here.

 

[Pete]

Let me add a question to this thread. Is there some mandate by the EPA that is driving down the pesticide content in paints and for that matter forbidding the use of copper in the future? I could see a difference in the performance of the 60% copper versus the 40% copper. It is hard to imaging Pettit messing with a successful ablative product, just for something to do. BTW, all that I have bought from West has come in with 60% copper. Little stock rotation problem helping out a customer.

Pete

Pete

 

[jim rosenthal]

I'm not sure the copper content by number has that much to do with how the paint performs. In the Chesapeake Bay, we don't have much of a fouling problem if we use any decent paint on the FRP parts. We do have a problem with hard fouling on the metal parts- wheels, shafts, struts, rudders, etc. I haven't found any cure for this and I have tried a number of things. I have used the following paints with good results: Awlgrip (their Gold one, whatever it's called), Micron Extra, Pettit Ultima, and SeaHawk. When the boat was in NC recently, they painted it with a hard paint and then ablative over that. Since then I have just added more ablative when it looked thin. So far, so good.

 

[Diver Down]

Re the EPA question, there is no specific plan being considered by that agency to eliminate copper from antifoulant paints. However, as an environmental manager of a large shipyard, I can tell you that copper will eventually become our next TBT (tribulytin, recently banned by an IMO treaty). Ablative bottom paints will become a thing of the past because the paint manufacturers will be forced to remove all metal or organic 'pesticides' from the coatings. This has already happened in certain parts of Europe (e.g. west coast of Sweden). Eventually, we'll all have to use hard bottom coatings that have to be scamped often if you don't get out of the slip frequently. This may not be a bad thing, though. We recently painted the underwater hull of a cruise ship with a Belgian paint (Ecospeed) that is advertised as having a 15-20 year life.