Can an antifoul paint actually make your boat run faster? Cigarette 38' Top Gun owner Tony Collins from Florida certainly believes so. After putting HMG's Slippy Bottom on the hull of his offshore raceboat, he found it planed at lower rpm and was measurably faster than with a conventional gel coat.

Tony also uses HMG's Acrythane acrylic urethane coating on the topside of his 1990 powerboat and says the finish looks better than new hulls coming out of the nearby US factory.

Slippy Bottom and Acrythane are part of a range of high performance marine coatings made by HMG Paints of Manchester, which have been tried and tested in the oceans of the world and distributed in the USA through offshoot HMG America. Originally from Georgia and now based out of Fort Lauderdale, Tony has owned one boat or another since leaving college and ten years ago graduated from a 27' Excalibur to the 38' Cigarette Top Gun, a 'go fast' boat that's as sleek as its name. He applied Acrythane to the topside fibreglass, after years of waxing and trying other finishes unsuccessfully, and was delighted with the results.

"It produces a finish on the fibreglass that no-one can believe," he say "I live very near the Cigarette factory here in Florida and, even after three years, it still has a higher surface brightness than the new hulls from down the street. Everyone is astonished by the coating and I don't do anything but wash it, and most of the time I don't even do that!"

This success with HMG's topside paint encouraged Tony to apply the same company's ecofriendly antifouling, Slippy Bottom, to the hull.

"Putting bottom paint on an offshore race boat is almost unheard of," he continue "but I had a special need. We were planning a move to the Bahamas and there was no way for me to remove the boat from the water on a daily basis, as I had in the past. I was amazed when we launched the boat . It planed at a lower rpm and ran faster than before. Normally three clicks forward on the throttles give me around 2300 rpm, then another click and we climb to 3000 rpm, gradually rising to 3400 rpm when it planed. Now, on the third click the boat kept coming up on plane. I don't know what WOT (wide open throttle) is any more, because I don't need to open it right up."

"At the end of the year repainting was a snap, with none of the sanding required for most antifouls, just pressure wash the bottom and apply the new paint," he conclude.

For further information about HMG's Slippy Bottom antifouling and Acrythane topside paint, contact:
HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com


Client Contact:
Alison Patterson
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email apatterson@hmgpaint.com