We bought sweetpea in December 98 but by May 2001 she needed the bottom blacking because she was rusting along the water line, so out she came good clean scrape wire brush until all loose bits were off. Then a coat of Rylard classic black 6 inches above and below the waterline and then 2 coats all the way round top to bottom, She looked good and I thought I had done a good job.
But by late 2004 she was looking bad along the water line again. Talking to some of the older members of our club, various reasons were put forward, the problem of where air meets water and the corrosive effect of this, and the problems of modern steel manufacturing and that nothing could be done better than the job I had done previously. so out she came again and a repeat of the last effort was done again.
Which brings me to 2007 and her bottom looking bad again and I have learned that this is about average for a narrowboat,
Its funny no one told me about this when we bought the boat but if you love your boat this is something that has to be done.
Now the internet is a powerful tool and I was determined to find out more about what was going on, And decided to contact a fishing boat company in Hull and asked to be put through to boat maintenance and I spoke to a man called Fred a nice guy that did not mind talking about rust because there problem is a lot worse than mine, salt water must be as bad as it gets were corrosion is concerned. I think Fred was in a good mood and told me about Zinger. I had never heard of it, but he gave me the rep’s number and told me to call. Nick at zinger was interested in what I wanted to do and explained what Zinger was Zinger is a one-component anti-corrosion zinc coating system. Its unique formula provides environmentally safe cathodic protection to steel comparable with hot-dip galvanising, with the added advantage that it can be applied as though it were a paint.
I was impressed with nick and he implied that in fresh water the Zinger system would last a long time when pressed how long he said in excess of 10 years but could not give any more information because in 8 years as a zinger rep no one had ever asked for it for a narrowboat, this really gave me something to think about talked it over with the captain we decided to give it a go.
Nick said get the bottom as clean as you can then he would come over and have a look. For a week I cleaned the bottom and it did look good, I rang Nick and he was there the next day took one look and said nowhere near clean enough, I was disappointed to say the least, it was agreed the only way would be to grit blast the whole bottom now this was serious because I had considered grit blasting in the beginning and the best quote I could get was £500 and that was a lot of money but Nick said get it blasted and he would supply the zinger at a discount as the company were interested in the project
Now Nick is a knowledgably man and told me the benefits of grit blasting, 1 it gets right down to clean steel and 2 gets rid of all the mill scale which according to Nick is the biggest problem with conventional bottom blacking on a narrowboat, he told me that the problem was not the blacking coming off the steel but the mill scale on the surface of the steel coming off and bringing the blacking off with It which then leaves the steel unprotected.
That was it I was sold, rang the blaster man and he said he would be there in 2 days and that I should be there to coat the steel within 3 hours of him finishing otherwise it would start to rust Nick agreed and put the zinger on overnight, it did arrive the next day.
The weather report was fine for the next day, so it was on,
it was decided to use a large roller and lay off with a brush if needed but a little bit of a experiment on a piece of sheet steel showed that the Zinger went on really nice no brushing needed so we were ready. I was at the boat club for 8 o’clock to meet the blaster men and feeling nervous, would the weather change and give us a problem, would we get a breakdown on the blaster which was a converted Lorry with the biggest compressor I have ever seen a man in a canvas suit and what looked like a divers helmet, he gets started, he thanked me for getting it fairly clean
so all my hard work had not been in vain after all.
I was amazed how clean it was coming and it was taking the mill scale off I could see the merits of blasting and what the colour of steel really is, when you see a job like this you realise just how big your boat is because the blaster is cleaning a 1in strip at a time up and down up and down he would go for an hour then his mate would take over and they didn’t stop for 8 hours these men earn there money. There she stands clean bright steel, blaster man said it was a shame to cover it with paint. We were all ready to go, one coat now, drying over night, one coat next morning, drying through day last coat of galvanising end of day, brilliant no rain it would have given us a real problem. Next morning Sweetpea was ready for the first of her finishing coats of Zinger black, and after the second she looked good. it was more battle ship grey than black
a couple of members reckoned I had wasted my money and right then I could not of cared less it had been a good project and I had enjoyed myself and our boat had got her bottom Zingered
How long will it last,
that was may 2007 so 5 years 2 months
what is her bottom looking like today 15 July 2012,
1 no noticeable deterioration
2 No rust of any kind
3 fresh water barnacles do not attach to the Zinger finish
4 No need for anodes as the bottom is one big anode