Sign me up! Antifouling paint keeps getting more esoteric and substantially more expensive.
Given that the hardest part of keeping a hull clean is the physical scraping the barnacles and other creatures off, perhaps a lower cost "tape" without mushroom structures would be more practical. Just peel the tape off with all the marine accumulated crud and replace with new tape instead of scrapping the bottom and painting again.
If the mushroom tape is reasonably priced, then cool! I'm all for trying it on my sailboat. Wind is a terrible resource to waste.
8
I use a product that fights the development of algae in places that get wet pretty often (in this case, the gutters of my house)--it's a spray-on liquid that creates microscopic pyramids that make it difficult for algae to get a secure foothold. The coating lasts for about a year. I kind of doubt this stuff would work on barnacles but it's more or less the same direction.
It's the "boring" science/scientists that are literally going to save the world.
16
Doesn't that look like a horrid job in the picture from 1928, scraping the beasts from the ships hull?
2
@scott t
Yes, and most likely they were recent immigrants at the time. But thank goodness we’ve always had the recent immigrants to do the jobs that the prior immigrants don’t want to do, much like today in agriculture and Central American immigrants. The crazy thing tha,t no one talks about is that we are all immigrants in this country. Unless one can claim to be of 100% Native American descent, then we are all European, or Asian, or African, or South American. So what it means to be “American” is not dependent on ones origin or color of skin. End of story.
11
At a moment when the Trump Administration is working to jam waste and inefficiency back into the economy, the political implications of technologies like this can't be overstated.
9
What is the impact on ship speed if the entire underwater hull has this coating? Has it been tested/modeled yet? Would the presumably initial greater friction (how does the coefficients of friction compare?) and coating cost be offset by losing the barnacle performance penalty, and time/cost not expended cleaning said barnacles? Am guessing more data is needed before doing something like an oil supertanker...
9
No barnacles? Someone needs to ask these eggheads what, pray tell, will then replace keelhauling?
Ideas have consequences, people, and not all of them show up on the bottom line.
10
Someone told me that hot sauce is put into ships paint to discourage barnacles. I remember seeing on Franks hot sauce label one time that it was owned by Glidden Paints.
To be fair to the noble barnacle, if I possessed the requisite clinging attributes then you’d never prise me off a hot sauce covered ship. Yum.
4
I live in hope that a copy editor somewhere will put "barnacle" and "bill" in the head.
4
Who's that knocking at my door,
Who's that knocking at my door,
Asked the fair young maiden....
3
of the product's uses, the article says that
". . . tape with mushrooms on it is already being manufactured for medical uses — particularly bandages to help burn patients . . ."
That seems counterproductive to me.
Why would you want to burn patients, in the first place?
18
Shark skin has been replicated to mimic its ability to repel, among other things, bacteria.
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-10/saving-skin
8
Is there something in this technology that might help prevent mold/mildew from attaching to residential decks?
I'm really tired of forever cleaning mine. In fact, I wiped out on the very slippery TSP/deck cleaner blend I use for extra- grungy areas a couple months ago, falling flat on my face and breaking my wrist, which is still in a cast. I already had repetitive stress injuries on my other hand from scrubbing endlessly. Seems to me that with millions of moldy decks decks in the USA, this is a public health issue.
Just wondering. Anything to keep from thinking about politics!
15
@Marie L.
Skip the TSP. Get some deck cleaner at one of the paint stores. it's basically oxygen bleach, not chlorine. My fav is Olympic. Spray it on with a garden sprayer and walk away. Mold and mildew just disappear -- takes about 30 seconds. No scrubbing. I'd love to get rid of a certain blowhard so easily, just to get back to politics.
13
Texture in this setting is a medium of architecture moreso than a chemical coating. The setup of a surface for plying the waves ought to be built on a natural model, such as shark skin that harbors no illness and promotes speeds up to 45 MPH. Mushrooms are a good metaphor for the shape, but born of land not sea. Imagine a future where design respects the legacy of millions of years of evolution instead of a few hundred years of faulty science.
8
Readers, let's focus on the science, not politics. Non-stop moisture from mid-July has made this a bad summer for pleasure boating. When I started my boat last week, I learned that the marine growth on its bottom was so thick that it occluded the raw-water intake screen, forcing the replacement of the impeller in the water pump. The boat had been sitting on its mooring for more than a month, which commercial ships never do. As the article states, marine growth inhibits efficiency and wastes fuel. To combat this waste, most boaters use ablative bottom paint, which contains a biocide. As the boat moves through the water, a layer of paint sloughs off, taking marine life with it (and biocide). I replaced the ablative paint on my hull with a hard bottom paint, which is safer to clean since it doesn't release poisons. Barnacles are only one form of marine growth, but they're the hardest to remove. Barnacles have plenty of places to grow beside boat bottoms, so there's no reason to pity them!
25
@SORTIE Those poor barnacles have rights too! ROFL!! If one has a 30 ft cruiser it is not difficult to use a mask and snorkel and clean the bottom off every few weeks. It's good exercise and can even be done in shallow water. For container ships, I would imagine U can pay a scuba diver to use an underwater pressure washer to blast off the bottom after every trip for perhaps $1000.
PBS’s NOVA had an episode a few years ago about using textured surfaces to reduce/eliminate bacterial growth in hospitals and public areas like cruise ships.
10
This is important for the health of water. the Navy was recently sued for scraping their ships in Puget Sound while in the water, a violation of the Clean Water Act.
16
@firststar - the USN is removing natural marine growth by returning it to its source, not peeling bottom paint. How is this a violation of the CWA?
5
@firststar
Ah, but the Trump EPA is working hard to get rid of those pesky Clean Water regulations!
Sorry, I know we're supposed to focus only on the science part, but unfornately the environmental issues keep bringing me back to politics...
11
The problem is the bits of antifouling paint that get scraped off along with the barnacles.
6
Somebody had a "eureka" moment, and it may well pay off. Good job.
13
Wonder if there is a way to apply this material to our current president so that he would become detached from us and be washed away into the sea of lost thoughts..
56
@Ben & Joanne Epperly
Dear Ben and Joanne Epperly,
I value creative & fanciful metaphorical framings like yours for their potential for triggering practical solutions. You provide relief from the right wing's wacky conspiracy theory, i.e., "the Russians Did It!" AKA the official received wisdom, the Military-Industrial Complex line which is little more than a banal, self-serving fairy tale for reigniting the cold war, a pretext for even more censorship, secrecy, xenophobia, warrior worship, and war mongering.
With happy memories of California & the '60s,
Tom
3
One of the more interesting effects is noted: once some barnacles sloughed off, no new ones seemed to attach. This may be the real discovery; mechanical shapes will tend to degrade (go to a lower energy state) and need replacement. Whatever the 'barnacle slough' effect is may extend the utility and is potentially valuable IP.
21
Could this kind of coating possibly work on water control and piping systems that are now being affected by Quaga Mussells in the American Wests lake Powell and Lake Mead? Obviously to stop the introduction and reproduction of this species would be best. Supporting and funding scientists for this problem is of the greatest importance.
30
As our current Congress and WH have told us, scientific research and the results of it are fake news. The Tяump administration is seeing to it even as we read this that wasteful funding for science is being severely reduced.
16
@Bob Hanson Really? As a scientist I can tell you that even science is so politicized that any finding or "studies" need to be closely scrutinized. I can tell you that science contains some inconvenient truths that you would immediately reject: There are differences in aptitudes between races. Human life begins ( a unique genetic profile) after conception. Nature eliminates the "unfit" so by allowing those with less fit genes to reproduce we are weakening our genome. These are just facts that leftists deny just like right wingers deny evolution.
1
@Peter One can find a difference in means between most groups on any given measure, but the point is there is far more variation on these measures within groups than between groups to warrant using group identity as a means for political decisions. No scientist denies that a unique genome is created at conception, but "life" can be defined as well in terms of the capacity for independence, which is how the term is used politically. Sperm and eggs also have unique genomes but Monty Python showed us the absurdity of relying solely on that definition for our political decisions. And eugenics has been rejected wisely as an abusive application of scientific knowledge for the purpose of removing individual liberty. Evolution, on the other hand, is a well supported body of theory that explains how the world works. Stop confusing science with politics to create false equivalencies and you will understand the science better than you apparently do, despite your professed profession.
1
I would rather read of barnacles than Trump. Thank you, Susan
20
@Susan I think barnacles and slippery surfaces are an interesting metaphor for the current tenant of the Oval Office and his cabinet.
9
@Susan on the other hand,
in the article i noticed, the info that,
". . . tape with mushrooms on it is already being manufactured for medical uses — particularly bandages to help burn patients . . ."
That seems flat out counterproductive to me.
Why would you want to burn patients, in the first place?
2
@teufeldunkel-prinz
yeh, as i was saying,
Probably any, or all, of the three words--
'help', 'burn',
'patients'
could be in quotes.
so some belletrisms in this article, they
knockt me clear back
to the sixties, austin, the time
when my guru (the individual incidentally, who nearly invented the electric blues violin at Vulcan Gas)
clarified to my sotweeded mind at that particular time, viz, an instance, of
a peculiar genius . . . of the english language, remarking that phrase,
'aspirin is good
for a headache--' but, NOT if you
are
a headache.
Will water temperatures make a difference in the effectiveness of the coating?
14