The Chesapeake Bay is known for brown water and rapid fouling, so any paint that can hang in there for 30 months is doing its job and is a good value. On the other hand, freezing water temperatures and very low salinity knock of a lot of the hard growth off over the winter, so we expect to see fewer barnacles in the spring than in the fall. But by April the days get longer, the bay is up to 50 F in the mainstream and 60 F in the marinas, and soft growth can make a jungle under your boat in no time.
We repainted the test boat with Total Boat Krypton by Jamestown Distributers. After six months it’s still bright green and fast. We pulled the submerged panels up onto the dock, sluiced them off with a bucket a few times from each direction as is our practice (see “Antifouling Paint for Brackish Waters”), and graded them for fouling on a 1-5 scale. Because spring fouling is different, our criteria for ratings is slightly adjusted, but blank panels (not anti-fouled) still rate poor and clean panels still rate excellent.
Among ablative paints, high copper paints from Pettit, SeaHawk, and Interlux Paints lead the field. Water based does not seem to be a hindrance, with Interlux Micron WA and Aqua rating excellent. Copper-free Krypton from Jamestown Distributors faded a bit from its early top performance but was still doing well.
Hard paints also benefit from high copper loads, With the Pettit Trinidad products all delivering solid performance, along with Interlux Utra-Kote.
See the tables below for a summary of both 24- and 30-month test results.
The way we see it, any paint that can get you into a third season is a good value and good for the environment. We’re going to leave these panels soaking until we get solid failures all down the line. The winner will be the next paint on our test boat.
Recommended (R), Budget Buy ($), Best Choice (*)
Manufacturer Model Copper Zinc 2-year (panel) 30-month (panel) Price (gallon)
Total Boat Krypton No ~ 7% Very Good Very Good $235.00 R$
Pettit Odyssey 60* 60% ~ 7% Excellent Excellent $341.00 *
Pettit Odyssey HD* ~ 40% ~ 7% Very Good Very Good $300.00 R
Pettit Odyssey Triton ~ 40% ~ 7% Good Good $400.00
Seahawk Color Kote Yes 10% Very Good Good $300.00
Seahawk Cu Kote 50% 10% Excellent Excellent $264.00 *
Seahawk Biocop TF 60% 10% Very Good Very Good $340.00 R
Seahawk Smart Solution No No Good Very Good $238.00
ePaint EP-21 No 50% Fair Poor $240.00
International Paints Micron CSC 25-50% 10-25% Good Good $300.00
International Paints Micron WA R 25-50% 10-25% Very Good Excellent $283.00 *$
International Paints Micron CF R No 10-25% Very Good Good $324.00
International Paints Micron Navigator No 2-10% Good Good $334.00
International Paints R Micron Aqua R 40% No Very Good Excellent $240.00 *
West Marine PCA Gold *$ 40% No Excellent Very Good $200.00
Recommended (R), Budget Buy ($), Best Choice (*)
Manufacturer Model Copper Zinc 2-year (panel) 30-month (panel) Price (gallon)
Total Boat JD Select 25% No Good Fair $160.00
Total Boat Spartan 38% No Very Good Good $230.00
Pettit Trinidad 75* 60% No Excellent Very Good $340.00 R
Pettit Trinidad Pro* 65% No Excellent Excellent $385.00 *
Pettit Trinidad HD 60% No Very Good Very Good $300.00 R$
ePaint EP 2000 No 5% Poor Poor $360.00
ePaint E Paint ZO No 5% Good Good $237.00
ePaint Ecominder No 40% Poor Good $180.00
International Paints Ultra-Kote 76% No Very Good Excellent $236.00 *
This article was published on 6 May 2024 and has been updated.
Great article, but I’m unable to see the column headings on the comparison chart in both Chrome and Safari browsers on a Mac. I’ll miss the paper version of PS in the near future if online tables and charts are not formatted so that we can read all elements with the same ease and clarity provided by the old paper versions of PS.
I can’t see the column headings, can’t scroll in charts and keep the headings visible (in spreadsheet terms, freeze top column of a table). The price hasn’t dropped when it went to on-line only, and it isn’t cheap. It took over a month to fix the “login from e-mail to see article” problem. I expected better.
Hey! Are you guys looking at these comments? Please fix this problem!
I’ll have to pile on here – now that you’ve gone to online only, it is imperative that you improve the formatting of the many tables, which are a critical element of most PS articles. I am able to see the headings on this table (which are on the 3rd row) but they disappear from view when you scroll down the list and are not shown at all when you go to the second page of data (that itself is a weird way to show more entries).
Note – my preferred browser is Firefox
After testing, I painted my bottom with Total Boat Krypton. I am now at 34 months, with no sft growth and about 10 barnacles on all three hulls. Also, being semi-hard, there is no apparent wear. I may paint on the fall, or it may wait until spring, since there is little growth in the winter. (I keep the boat in the water year-round.)
So Krypton is living up to the testing.
I have had very good performance from Micron 66. It’s not in the list, probably because it cannot be used in brackish and fresh water.
I’ve switched to Petit’s top line paint, Odyssey HD, now called Max Protection. Easier to apply.
I have used Micron 66 in the Chesapeake Bay before, but from what I understand, it is the curing period that is most critical. I painted the boat and in just a few days, headed south and spent 2 weeks going around the DELMARVA. That meant the boat was in salt water for 10 days, almost immediately after launching. No problems, very good life. But I would not recommend Micron 66 for the Bay; there have been some bad experiences.
That said, I would probably go with Odyssey 60. The reason I used Total Boat Krypton was curiosity about how a non-copper paint would do long-term. I’ll probably use Krypton again, just because I had enough left over.