Wikipedia states "New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island —and more than 700 smaller islands."

A lot of our time is spent by the water, on the water and in the water. The majority of our imports and exports travel by water.  

NZ has an excellent reputation for building and maintaining marine vessels big and small. Specialised underwater coatings are required for both the inside and the outside of these vessels to provide protection.  

This short presentation by Neil Debenham will discuss a number of the complexities that need to be addressed when developing underwater coatings, which include environmental and global regulatory as well as the more traditional coating development aspects.

Underwater Coatings are also sometimes referred to as antifouling coatings, but of more recent times there have been a raft of alternative technologies released to the market which do not fit the historic definitions of ‘antifouling coatings’.

Neil Debenham _FTSC has been in the NZ Coatings industry since 1980 and is currently the Regulatory Affairs Manager with Altex Coatings Ltd. a wholly owned subsidiary of Resene Paints Ltd. Altex Coatings amongst its portfolio is a developer and supplier of underwater coatings (also referred to as antifouling coatings). Neil has been a member of SCANZ since the mid 1980’s and is an active member within the NZ Paint Manufacturers Association of New Zealand, where he served as President for over 10 years. Neil is an Industrial Chemist by trade having started his career with Revertex (now Allnex) working as a laboratory technician developing emulsions. In the late 1980’s he was introduced into the world of quality assurance and from there has specialised in these aspects within the industry, and this of course has grown into the oversight of all things regulatory (excluding tax) for the Company. He is part of a small team of Altex personnel with the responsibility of overseeing the development of antifouling coatings which are a mainstay of the Company’s portfolio.

As usual, we have a room booked for the talk, this time at Fisher House, with nibbles served at 5.30 pm, and the talk starting at 6.00 pm. There will be a cash bar available, and time for questions and networking afterwards.