The antifouling - what color?

Written by Radi Stanislav 4/27/2025

Revised 4/29/2025

The antifouling paint of Titanic (and her sisters, for that matter) has recently been subject to much debate. Its composition is generally agreed to be a mixture patented by the company Mesers Suter, Hartmann and Rahtjen. Its specific color is debated, noted to be in a range of red to pink. Most model companies pick just generic red pigments for their models. I am not the avid researcher, but below I provide 3 possible colors for Titanic’s antifouling.

The story of these colors is interesting. From what I can find, Bob Read first published his in 2018 article on why he believed the antifouling was a near pink color. This was met with a lot of criticism, and a group of people from the Titanic Enchantress of the Sea project wrote an article challenging Read’s conclusions. When presented to Read himself, they were blocked and made unable to show their article to others on Facebook.

Bob Read provides¹ a nearly pink antifouling color. (left). #d58a84

Titanic Enchantress of the Sea highly disagrees with this, and provides a dark red color (middle). #90332a

In a different article², Titanic Enchantress of the Sea also provide an alternate color, nearly purple (right). #79121c

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From some personal investigation, I found the middle color shown above to be the most reasonable as Titanic’s antifouling paint. The color of the antifouling is highly debated, and I cannot provide a completely correct color, but the color provided by the Titanic Enchantress of the Sea project is the most accurate today.

Citations:

1 | Read, Bob, D.M.D. Titanic’s Antifouling Paint (revised). Titanic CAD Plans, June 2023.

2 | Titanic Enchantress of the Sea. The Case of Titanic’s Antifouling.