International One UP and Toplac Plus coatings review

Mark Rothfield: 

G'day. I'm Mark Rothfield, and thanks for watching Club Marine TV as we dive into the world of AkzoNobel yacht coatings. I promise we'll make this more interesting than watching paint dry, so stay tuned.

With me now is John Scott from AkzoNobel and John, firstly, thank you for joining us. Easy question. Can you tell us what sets the yacht coatings division apart?

John Scott:

We date back to 1972. Our yacht coating business unit specialises in providing top-of-the-line solutions for the protection and finishing of leisure craft. One of our key values is a passion for paint.

Mark Rothfield:

I've obviously heard about AkzoNobel and its main paint brands International and Awlgrip. I've used them as well. What is unique about those brand?

John Scott:

Each brand brings something special to the table, Mark. Awlgrip, for instance, has held a reputation of universal trust and recognition for an impressive 50 years. We're celebrating our 50-year anniversary. And it's not just about quality, it's also about setting the benchmark in decorative yacht coatings.

Now, when we talk about International, we're talking about over a century of crafting innovative coating solutions. So whether it's protection, beautification or performance enhancement, International has been at the forefront offering high-performance coatings for boats across the globe.

Mark Rothfield:

Understand there's a new addition to the family, Sea Hawk. What can you tell us about this expansion?

John Scott:

Indeed, Mark. Sea Hawk is a premium range of anti-foul from America, providing a comprehensive lineup of both new builds and maintenance.

Mark Rothfield:

Anything in the pipeline we should know about?

John Scott:

We recently introduced the One UP and Toplac Plus system, a true game-changer for boats, whether you're a DIY enthusiast or a professional applicator. You can actually roll it without the need to tip it off with a brush. So when you roll, no bubbles and as the paint dries, it stretches out beautifully, providing a finish not dissimilar to as a spray finish.

This product is developed for timber boats, however, it's versatile and can be used on other substrates like fiberglass or aluminium, offering a hassle-free alternative to the two-pack system. For those in Australia and New Zealand, you should already be familiar with our yacht primer and pre-coat and Toplac, but with the One UP and Toplac Plus System, we've taken it up a notch.

Mark Rothfield:

You know, you look around a marina area or a mooring area, and you see lots of boats in need of painting. If it's so important, what's the biggest hurdle?

John Scott:

Well, there are three main things. There's time, there's understanding a system, and there's getting started. And so really what we're trying to do with One UP and Toplac Plus is reduce the number of products and then we can help people to actually organise the time to get the project underway. Once you've done that, two products, it's a much simpler system, it's very easy to get started.

The way the product has been engineered to work with longer over-coating times means that people can actually, your DIY person, your week-by-week person, who has to work during the week, can do a little bit one weekend, and then without having to sand, they can get another coat on the next weekend. That way, it makes it just much more doable. Making it much more doable makes it much more achievable, and then people will actually get the great result out of it.

Mark Rothfield:

Joined by Brandon who's a professional shipwright. This product is often used by amateurs, but it's great to see pros using it as well.

Brandon, first, tell us about the boat that you're working on here.

Brandon Buyink:

Yeah, she's a beautiful boat. It's 94 years old called Duchess. It's had highs and lows in its career, but we're giving her a bit of a birthday now and doing a lot of work around the cabin and some deck work and some rot repairs around the gunwale on this starboard side as well.

Mark Rothfield:

What are some of the advantages of being able to use One UP, instead of a two-pack system?

Brandon Buyink:

Well, because a lot of the paint can be extremely old and a lot of the time before even the current owners had even owned the boat, so there's no real prior history and no real records of what sort of paints were on there, and the vast majority of those products were old oil-based single packs.

 So being able to use a product like One UP, where it's got great coverage, it's a single pack, quick-drying primer, it also has a long chemical bond time between that as an undercoat and the Toplac Plus as a top coat, means we can prime without any risk of reaction with the previous paint systems that are on there. We can get a good adhesion, good coverage, and then we can let it dry for a few days, or we can use a Toplac straightaway without having to sand it.

Mark Rothfield:

I presume that also means potentially less sanding and having to get back to bare wood.

Brandon Buyink:

Yeah, it is, a hundred percent. So if the existing paint system is sticking and adhering nicely, then that's something that we can scuff up over the top and put the new product over the top, the new primer over the top.

Mark Rothfield:

Earlier I spoke to Brandon, the shipwright, who is a professional-

John Scott:

Yeah, and he loved it. Yeah.

Mark Rothfield: 

... but can anyone use it?

John Scott:                        

Yes, anyone. Anyone who can go in and buy the product can use the product. It is a question of following the guidelines and getting the technical data sheet, or at least reading what's on the back of the cans. But if you do that, you can get a very good result.

I'm not a professional applicator. The first time I used it, they put me on a little board with a roller in our head office in Southampton, and I could not believe the result. I got an absolutely fantastic finish the first time. I just put the paint on and I sat back and I watched it turn into a mirror finish before my very eyes.

 As a result of that, I've been raving about it since I came back before we'd even launched the product here. That's probably, Mark, why they've asked me to have a chat about it because I really... I know the product's good and I know that I'm not a good applicator, and I know that I've got a good finish out of it.

 So yeah, I'm very happy to also see that result coming from not only in the case of Brandon, the professional, but also I'm getting that from a lot of feedback from people who are going back to the DIY stores where they purchased the product. And so the shop attendants in the stores are actually telling me that they're getting really good feedback so it's very rewarding.

Mark Rothfield: 

I love to see old boats preserved.  Anytime you can keep these things on the water and being used, from a sustainability point of view, is fantastic.

John Scott:

It's absolutely essential, like antique furniture, that people maintain these boats. A good wooden boat owner sees themselves not as the owner, but they see themselves as a custodian and that this boat, as we saw today, that boat has been passed from grandfather to son to grandson, and that's very much what everybody, I think, who goes into buying a boat would like to have happen.

 That's certainly what we would like to see at AkzoNobel and we'd like to see all boats painted beautifully. There's nothing better than when you've got the sail set on a beautiful classic boat and it's a perfect sailing day like it is today, just knowing that your boat actually looks glamorous and people are calling out going, "Looking good, mate," that's the key to it.

Mark Rothfield:

Yeah. There's no denying that the topic of paint can be a dry one, and it's a job I strenuously avoid at home. But there's something special about working at a shipyard on your own boat, and I genuinely love that glossy shine that you can get with modern-day paints.

I also know timber boat owners in particular are very passionate about preserving not just their craft, but the history that's associated with them, and AkzoNobel through its range, International, Awlgrip and Sea Hawk, are packing their products with innovation that makes using them so much easier, and you get great results.

 I'm Mark Rothfield for Club Marine TV. See you next time.