Marine paint or B and Q

ribrage

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Its that time of year again when the paint brush is required to restore the (t)rusty old ketch to her finest fettle and Ive been looking at numerous options of paint and the price varies radically

So my question is : Do i really need to spend 3 x as much to buy "marine " paint or just get the right colour from B and Q ?
 
My Ocean had a coat of Dulux Weathershield on the hull that lasted (apart from scuffs and gouges) for 5 years. Last year I did it again using the paint left in the same can, all I did being lazy was 2-pack and sand the dings, touch up those areas only with undercoat, and then re-glossed the lot.

The paint had not yellowed at all and had stayed white enough to make it hard for me to see where I had been with the re-coat.

On the decks I used 2-pack polyurethane because I believe it is a harder wearing finish for kids feet.

My previous steel boat (not a NB) was also Weathersheild, topsides and hull with the bottom in bitumen. That was fine too!

My neighbour paints his sloop (moored in Emsworth) with whatever he has to hand. Last time was 5 years ago in white 2-pack acrylic, close up it looks as though it was sprayed and this year all he did was polish it up with one of those cheap Lidl polishers. The paint came from a car paint supplier so was not marine paint.
 
On my aluminium boat (which had a hard life in a busy commercial dock) I found that Dulux Weathershield Gloss was the best paint for my topsides.
 
Premixed Dulux is pretty high quality and fine for marine use. Avoid the stuff they mix in store to get the choice of colour.
I used some on a dinghy and it took 12 hours to go tacky, 2 days to [sort of] dry and 3 months later it's still not properly hardened.
Pretty colour though.
 
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