Ship is a complicated structure that needs carefully engineered high – quality protection against corrosion and fouling. Weak protection can lead to catastrophic consequences for ship, as well as for the environment. Protective coatings in shipbuilding industry today are the most common way of protecting structures against corrosion and fouling and they play important role in ship’s safety and performance. Today’s commercial antifouling coatings prevent bigger accumulation of bio fouling on the underwater part of the ship by releasing toxic biocides. Because of raising awareness of fouling and biocidal coatings problem, regulations of international organizations are getting stricter. That is why there are more intensive researches aimed towards finding ecological alternative to antifouling coatings. In this paper, ship corrosion and fouling problem is shown, as well as technologies of protective coatings with more detailed review of silicone based antifouling coatings. In the experimental part of this paper, two types of antifouling coatings were tested, self – polishing and silicone foul release coating. Field examination tested coating’s antifouling efficiency while laboratory examination tested corrosion resistance. Examinations were conducted in Pirovac bay and in the Laboratory of materials protection at the Faculty of Mechanical engineering and Naval Architecture University of Zagreb.