POISON PAINT FOR SHIPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 15 (Supplement)

POISON PAINT FOR SHIPS.

TO RID THEM OF BARNACLES. Barnacles, hydrpids, algae, tiuiicates, inolluscs, and other forms of sea life will cling to the bottom of a ship, and in some cases the speed of the ship is diminished by as much as 50 per cent. Fuel consumption is increased, sometimes as high as 40 per. cent. Voyages are delayed, the wear on machinery is much greater, and a month or more each year is lost .while the barnacled bottom is being reconditioned. In some case, vessels at sea for six of eight months have returned with an accumulated growth of barnacles two or three inches thick, weighing from 50 to 100 tons. For centuries barnacling has been combated without particular success, and most recently a method of using poisoned paints, designed to repel these leech-like organisms, has been devised. In the.attempts to rid ships' bottoms of barnacles, coats of loose animal hair have been applied with pitch to the hull, and the hulls also have been smeared with butter mixed with poisonous substances. Methods are now being scientifically investigated in various countries and in this connection the nature and habits of these organisms are being studied.