I bought a 17' Wahoo center console one year and the owner's son in law left the boat in the bay all summer with no bottom paint. The bottom was covered in barnacles and I started chipping away at them with a razor bladed to make sure I didn't scratch the gel coat. After a couple of days, I gave up and put the boat in the Delaware River for the summer. Every once in a while, I would jump in the water to scrub the bottom with a brush to clean off the algae. You had to be careful not to get your hand too close or the barnacles would take your skin right off. By late summer, I was brushing one day and noticed a lot less barnacles, I guess the algae was eating away at them. Then by Sep, the bottom had no barnacles left at all! I just had to do my usual routine of scrubbing down the algae and I had a clean boat.
