Coat Once. Groom. Sail for a Decade.
A foul-release hull isn't maintained the way a painted antifouling is. Because SEA-SPEED V 10 X ULTRA is hard, non-depleting and biocide-free, you keep it glass-smooth by grooming - light, in-water cleaning that wipes fouling away before it bites - rather than scrubbing, eroding and recoating every docking. One application, 1,000+ cleans, and a hull that holds its fuel saving for ten years.
Two maintenance philosophies, two very different bills
A biocidal antifouling is consumed and replaced; a foul-release hull is kept clean and kept sailing. The difference compounds over a decade.
Scrub it, erode it, recoat it
- The paint is ablative - designed to wear away, so it must be renewed
- Heavy cleaning strips the poisoned top layer and shortens its life
- Cleaning sheds copper / biocide - increasingly restricted in ports
- Full recoat at most dockings - yard time and material every cycle
- Drag creeps up between infrequent, heavy cleans
Groom it, keep it smooth, keep sailing
- Hard, non-depleting film - never consumed, never ablated
- 1,000+ in-water cleans without film loss - grooming restores smoothness
- Zero biocide released - nothing to shed into the water
- One application for ten years - no recoat cycle, less yard time
- Frequent light grooming holds the hull near its glass-smooth baseline
A film engineered for the cloth, not the scraper
The same properties that let SEA-SPEED release fouling are what let it be groomed indefinitely without wearing out.
- Non-depleting & non-ablative - the film is never consumed, so cleaning restores it instead of eroding it
- Hard, abrasion-resistant film - glass-hard yet flexible, it shrugs off grooming pads and brushes
- 1,000+ underwater cleans without film loss or toxic release
- Average roughness under 5 µm (OEM TDS) - grooming keeps it nano-smooth between dockings
- Foul-release surface chemistry - much of the growth sheds under way; light fouling wipes off
- Biocide-free - barnacles wipe off by hand even after 18 weeks of static immersion
Documentation: SEA-SPEED Technical Data Sheet (PDF) · Safety Data Sheet - Part A (PDF)
A grooming cycle, not a cleaning crisis
Grooming works because it is proactive and repeatable. Catch fouling early and often, and the hull never leaves its smooth baseline.
Inspect
Check hull condition on a schedule - ideally with a diver-free micro-ROV survey that grades fouling objectively before it builds.
Groom early
Light, frequent in-water grooming wipes incipient slime and weed away while it's easy - not a heavy scrub once shell fouling has set.
Verify smoothness
The hard, non-depleting film comes back to its glass-smooth, sub-5 µm average-roughness surface - confirmed by inspection, with no coating lost.
Log & repeat
Record each groom against the vessel so the hull's condition - and its fuel and CII baseline - stay defensible, docking after docking.
The cheapest coating is the one you don't recoat
Over a ten-year warranted life, SEA-SPEED replaces a string of recoats with a grooming routine - less yard time, less material, no biocide to manage at the waterline, and a hull that holds its fuel saving the whole time. That is what turns the coating into a 345% five-year and 969% ten-year modelled return: the maintenance regime is part of the ROI, not on top of it.
Grooming a foul-release hull is not new
Hard foul-release coatings have been maintained by in-water grooming on demanding fleets for years - including the most grooming-intensive operators afloat.
- US Navy - SEA-SPEED has been a foul-release coating of choice since 2001, on fleets where in-water grooming is standard practice
- HSC Francisco (BUQUEBUS) - the world's fastest high-speed ferry (~50 kn) ran 360,000+ nautical miles over three years on the Buenos Aires–Montevideo route with no repaint and no measurable decay in speed or fuel performance
- 1,000+ underwater cleans tolerated without film loss or toxic release - grooming is designed in
- Barnacles wipe off by hand even after 18 weeks of static immersion - light grooming is genuinely light
- Lloyd's Register certified system (Report LR2514761AF-02), in service on 400+ naval & commercial vessels
Watch the foul-release film shed and stay clean
Static-immersion tests show why a SEA-SPEED hull is groomed, not scrubbed - fouling releases instead of bonding, so a light wipe restores the surface.
In-Water Grooming - FAQ
What exactly is in-water grooming?
Won't all that cleaning wear the coating out?
Does grooming release biocides into the water?
How does grooming protect fuel and CII?
Who carries out the grooming?
Who supplies the coating, and where?
Plan a grooming-led, ten-year hull
Send your vessel particulars and we'll model SEA-SPEED's fuel, emissions and ROI for your hull - and help you build the grooming and inspection plan that keeps it smooth for a decade.
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