Shark skin or dimples?
 

To gain more speed, Has anyone tried a coating on the bottom of the boat to break up boundary layer? I know there are textured surfaces for high performance swim racing suits ( like shark skin) and the bottom tray on one of my sports cars has dimples like a golf ball to promote high velocity air underneath.
I wonder if this would work on the water?

break out the drill,,make a 1000+ dimples and report back to us.:D

I thought that it had long been established that burnishing the gelcoat on the bottom of a fiberglass built boat with 180-220 grit sandpaper resulted in the best and most cost effective speed increase over waxing or other 'speed coatings' .

I had not heard that but that is kind of what I was driving at / expecting.

If you are lucky, you might gain 1mph.

Can you imagine trying to keep it clean after sanding? not worth the 1/2 mph gain, if it was worth it all manufacturers would do it to be fastest...

Find out what all the Racing Blow Boats use , they will speed millions to pick up a knot!

The best surface is like a golf ball, years ago a top prostock racer played with different finishes in a wind tunnel, by breaking up the air(water would be more sticky) with a dimpled surface reduce helped drag, because of the work involved and NHRA frowning upon it, we played games with the big logos you now see on roof of prostockers

Why not seek the definitive answer...mythbusters tested the dimple theory...

would nt the same hold true a boat bottom with blisters aka chicken pox all over the bottom. Has nt anyone every tested the mph difference between a hull with and without blisters

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...6cb3c10337.png

Here is what I came up with years ago.

-Blueprint the bottom.
-Sand the bottom 320 grit DA sander NOT orbital sanding direction from port to starboard. However Ive seen conflicting info on the direction and pattern.
-Strakes, hullsides and transom should be sharp edges. Make a tool and drag epoxy on the edges. Sand.
-Paint your lowers with HullKote Speed Polish, HullSpeed SuperGlide or KISS-COTE
-Paint your hull with HullKote Speed Polish, HullSpeed SuperGlide or KISS-COTE of course, these are polymers, you dont really paint them on, you rub them on.
-Have Wilson blueprint your lowers.

Personally, I prefer dimples over shark skin.....

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...dfbf6ccedd.jpg

So Osmosis maybe a good thing?

Water has significantly more drag than air, it could however aerate causing a bubble barrier decreasing drag!

Add bubblers

old article
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...cavity-system/

In my own mind I wrote a good story about some of this 6 years ago.
Yes I use to write in a marine Tech magazine that actually went out to 3 countries. My stories fell under the High Performance Corner in the magazine.

Here it is about the golf ball effect and air entrapment and blue printing and so forth. Read away its 3 pages long and I had to put my thinking cap on to write this story way back then in 2014.

https://www.emconsultinginc.com/Digi.../index.html#19