THE TRIBOS® STORY
The problem is that the sea is a very harsh environment, and depending on where the vessels transit, the temperatures could be icy cold to sunbaked hot. The splash of sea water also erodes or damages or fades the paintwork. Further to that, depending on the size of the vessel, the above-waterline paint job typically takes days (or even weeks) and may be carried out by more than 1 team of coating professionals and may cost hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars. Up close, the paint job may look even and uniform, but viewed from a distance, it may look patchy in some areas because of variations in the temperature, humidity, wind etc. which affects the curing rate, and color density of the coating after application. Each coating would probably last 4 to 5 years at best before requiring major maintenance.
Back in the early 90’s, the team noticed this and figured that there needed to be a solution to this which would allow for the coating job to be more even and would also be a good sell point for the customer which over time saved money for the owners and provide a unique selling proposition.
Having feedback from the yacht owners, we also found out that an area of concern was sea water sticking to the glass of the vessels, especially in rough weather and heavy seas. The team looked at what was available in the market and found many products that repelled water but did not remain on the glass surface long (typically up to two weeks, and at most 1 month), so we decided to re-think the chemistry of glass, and produced Better View ™. A hydrophobic coating specifically designed to adhere to glass and provide an optically flat finish so smooth that even ants would have trouble walking on it yet remain effective for at least up to 6-months.
Thus the 2 signature products – Tribos Coatings® and Better View™ came into being, and Tribos Coatings International was launched as a specialized coatings product company. The Tribos Paint Coating has also been tested and approved for use by Boeing and Dassault aviation and has indeed been used in the coatings of aircraft.
Tribos expanded and then was tested on automotive coatings and found to be very effective both for the paint and for the glass and has since been launched globally.
Tribos was acquired in March 2023, and the company headquarters has moved from The United Kingdom to Singapore and has been re-launched as Tribos Coatings (International) Pte. Ltd. to better suit the international business environment with R&D facilities in India, and in 2024 we set up manufacturing facilities in India and Singapore.
With our R&D in full swing, Tribos will be rolling out even more specialized products in the future. Stay tuned….
