The last few weeks have been dragging on with this Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating. I first tested the boat with out the Wetlander kit on it by doing a friction test and water leak test. This was on an Alumacraft 1436 LT riveted jon boat. The drag test went without issue, but this Alumacraft boat was awfully leaky for a boat that was just over a year old…

I flipped the boat upside down, and looked it over before I started the prep work. Then I found it… a cracked rivet. So that got replaced, and then the boat was sanded down. After the boat was sanded and cleaned, the Wetlander Primer was applied. The kit I got was the half gallon, 2-part kit (Primer+Top coat).

Once that primer was on, the Wetlander Top coat went on. It went on identically to the Wetlander Primer. The only thing is when you first start to apply the Wetlander Topcoat, its going to look like its beading up, like water on a waxed car, this is normal. Wait for it to dry a little and go back over it with out re-wetting your brush or roller and it will lay down and look better. After you get that first coat of Wetlander Topcoat down, you shouldn’t see that beading up any more and you can go on your way!

So now the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating is now on this Alumacraft 1436 LT riveted jon boat and its time to test it out. We won’t be able to put it out on the water yet because I need to fix the transom, but I went ahead and did the friction drag test again! Here is the video!

Test result for the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating were great! It was tested on a dry, grass yard, with nothing in the boat except the fishing deck I have in it. I measured the pulling force with a scale. This whole process wasn’t the most scientifically controlled experiment but I kept everything that I could the same. The boat weight was the same, the grass was the same, and I used the same scale.

With out the Wetlander Bottom Coating – It took about 130-150 pounds to move the boat. Around 130 lbs to break the friction to start moving and 150 lbs to keep it going when you wanted to pull it faster.

With the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating Applied – This time around it took 30-50 pounds to move the boat! It took about 30 lbs to get the boat moving and 50 lbs to keep it going when you wanted to pull it faster.

Awesome! Thats what I was thinking when I first started to pull this jon boat across the yard with the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating on it.  Its a big drop from 150 lbs of force to 50lbs of force. This means when ever you go over a thick patch of grass, or your plowing your way through a tussock, your boat will slide over it easier; allowing your motor to work a little less while propelling you over that obstacle. That could be the difference between getting beached on a mud flat or a tussock OR making it through and getting back to the boat ramp. If you do so happen to get stuck, this also means that it will be 3 times easier to pull you out hahaha.

I’m sure the numbers I am getting only qualifies for flat bottom boats because the weight is distributed equally compared to a v-hull where a lot of the energy and weight is put on that V. So you may not get the results I got.

This is something permanent that is staying on this jon boat, so we will periodically take a look at it and see how it holds up. Once the transom repair is done, we will take the boat back out on the water and play in some grass and see if we notice any difference!

If you want to learn more about the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating, you can visit their site here – https://bottomcoatings.com/ or view the kit I got – https://wetlander.myshopify.com/collections/all/products/2l-kit-half-gallons