Chili con Antifouling

Barnacles are not a sailor's best friends - just read the thread about ultrasound.

From Hanse-werft my boat was in 2006 delivered with Hempel self-polishing antifouling.Every year I had to remove thousands of barnacles. Back in 2009 i read someplace on the internet, that barnacles did not like the taste of chili. So I took took the liberty to blend 100 grams of chili in the thinner to every liter of Hempel Hard Racing I used. The following year I had only a few barnacles on places where the antifouling was thin. I also have used SVB Hard antifouling to the same effect.

In my harbour my fellow sailors could see that the barnacles mysteriously had disappeared from the hull, but anyway I heard many stupid remarks about why the hull was clean. In this forum there are no stupid sailors, so I will not see stupid remarks here? If you think it is a good idea, use it, or not?

My experience showed, that the aluminium S-drive with special antifouling was still covered with some barnacles, (since you cannot use copper-paint there). but this year I painted the S-drive with Hammerite anti-rust paint loaded with chili. Next year I will see if it was an good idea.

The last 8 years I have painted the hull every second year, because the other years I just needed to lift the boat up, rinse with the high-pressure cleaner and remove a few  barnacles by hand.

In 2018 I had for several reasons not had the boat out of the water for almost three years, so I expected some barnacles on the hull. But only the S-drive was infested. The hull was a little green but otherwise okay.  Remember to soak the chili in thinner before blending with antifouling.