Anyone seen this viral video of this stuff that you treat a surface with make it hydrophobic?
What would the effect be when you would treat your foils with this, or even the whole boat?

Just saw that recently. Looks interesting, although I'd be curious how you would get it off of something...

The water behaves similar to a highly waxed or oiled surface, so I would suspect that it might be worth trying on a hull. Not sure about a foil (for fear of increased cavitation)?

Pretty cool but pricey. My concern would be being able to ever remove it for repairs.

Interesting. First use that comes to mind is an undercoating on vehicles.

Walls on a hog barn would be sweet for washing too.

I wonder how long it lasts? In a chute with cement? I'm guessing not very long.

Wouldn't it disrupt laminar flow?

Interesting uses for the stuff.., say sunglasses while sailing to keep from spotting. Gloves and spray suit to keep dry.
Since it started water beading immediately, from what I have heard, it may not be good for a hull. One theory is you don't want the water to bead.
Rick

I could probably run a couple quick tests in the towing tank to see if it reduces drag on a hull. Not sure the difference in force will be of great enough magnitude to differentiate from the noise.

It would probably make the boat float higher since it repels water!

but seriously, though, I'm wondering about it's epoxy mold release properties and how smooth the surface is if sprayed.

I wonder if its slippery? It'd be kinda cool if your tramp and lines could stay dry.

Repels water? Perfect! Apply to sails, and away with workaday capsizes.

If that's your problem, Tad's got a number of solutions:

sunscreen
bananas
McLube Sailcoat

I meant without making the surfaces slippery. There has to be some advantage of not carrying around the extra weight of water for no reason.

That was my thought, using it above the water line to shed water quickly.

another use would be on the sail where the telltales are located. When they get wet the often will stick and you are back to reading the luff like the old days of yore.

Good call Rick. I wonder if Rain-X would even work for that?

great point, although I wonder if both surfaces (sail and telltale) are coated, would the water bead up between the two and hold it together similar to what it does untreated?

Came across this article which talks about a potential performance gain of 8%, but by the looks of it not worth the hassle! (good read though)
http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/DISCUSSION_C6/Dock_Talk_F5/Hull_coatings_P8414/

I think it could be useful to treat the tramp and snufferbag, also because it has UV protection built in.
Might even be useful to spray the inside of the hulls with as well

I got distracted... "Will the Riblets return?" sounded like barbeque....

I was in Home Depot today and saw a product that looked very similar. It was rust oleum never-wet. Seemed to have many of the same demonstrations and a similar color. It was $18 for 2 spray cans.