Painting hull dilemmas

Yealm

Yealm

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I’ve finally decided to bite the financial bullet and get my boat painted.
It’s a 40y Contessa 32 with a brown hull- gelcoat’s thinning and discoloured with whitish areas.

I’m going with awlcraft but I can’t quite decide between navy blue and white. The decks are slightly yellow, the cabin sides by the windows, white.

My preference is probably blue, as perhaps suits the older boat, but I’ve been quoted an extra £1500.

Grateful on any views on colour and advice on why blue is so expensive, and are there any other downsides? Boat’s kept in the Plymouth area.

Many thanks!
 
I was warned off dark colours, I wanted navy blue. I went for an off-white in the end. A friend with a blue hulled 32 says it does get very warm in the summer. Dark colours absorb heat, light colours reflect it. In winter, the dark hull colours radiate heat better than light colours, too so the boats get colder inside.
 
In the event of a ding, which I do not wish upon your soon-to-be lovely hull, matching the repair may be easier with white.
 
RJJ said:
In the event of a ding, which I do not wish upon your soon-to-be lovely hull, matching the repair may be easier with white.
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AFAIK Awlgrip is almost impossible to touch in after a scrape or minor bump.

As a well known cheapskate - but also an acomplished weilder of a good paintbrush and proper coach enamel - I would brush paint it.

First mate and I did the complete hull and transom on our steel Hartley 32 here in Wellington in ten days in November. This included antifoul and anodes, dealing with two patches of corrosion under the teak rubbing strake and painting the whole hull above the waterline.

Looks great too!

We used a locally available marine paint, Altex Snow White. Good quality brushes and Altex thinner. Getting the consistency of the paint right is essential, as is knowing how to brush correctly for a good finish. Youtube can no doubt help here.

I expect you love your boat, but at 40 years old the value will not go up much with a pro respray. Not anywhere near the cost that is for sure.

Think about it - before 1928 there were no cars spray painted in the UK - all were coach painted. IIRC the first use of cellulose spray paint in the UK was by the Coventry based Rudge Whitworth motorcycle company in 1929.

You will save a lot of money and be able to touch up minors scrapes easily in the future.

IMHO it might be worth investigating.
 
Yealm said:
I’ve finally decided to bite the financial bullet and get my boat painted.
It’s a 40y Contessa 32 with a brown hull- gelcoat’s thinning and discoloured with whitish areas.

I’m going with awlcraft but I can’t quite decide between navy blue and white. The decks are slightly yellow, the cabin sides by the windows, white.

My preference is probably blue, as perhaps suits the older boat, but I’ve been quoted an extra £1500.

Grateful on any views on colour and advice on why blue is so expensive, and are there any other downsides? Boat’s kept in the Plymouth area.

Many thanks!
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Hi P.

You might recall, I had my boat Awlgripped in c 2008. Dark Blue looks good, terrific when new, but it does mark up easily. I don't recall the heat thing being a consideration in our conditions but every scratch shows through white, even ones you might never notice on a white hull. The boat is still passable 10 years on but I don't subscribe to the idea that it lasts for 20 years or more

I think, In the Contessa 32 market, a hand painted finish would reduce the value of the boat but I don't expect you are thinking of that anyway. if I had it done again I, like you, would probably go for Awlcraft - did you go off the idea of re-gelcoating?
 
Yealm said:
I’m going with awlcraft but I can’t quite decide between navy blue and white. The decks are slightly yellow, the cabin sides by the windows, white.

My preference is probably blue, as perhaps suits the older boat, but I’ve been quoted an extra £1500.

Grateful on any views on colour and advice on why blue is so expensive, and are there any other downsides? Boat’s kept in the Plymouth area.
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Awlcraft 2000 is good paint, I had the blue stripes on my old HR sprayed with it. As others have said, it can be repaired/buffed, whereas Awlgrip can't.

I'm not sure why you've been quoted £1500 extra for blue - there's little difference in the price of the paint itself (navy blue is around 25% more than white). It could be that the yard wants to spend more time preparing before painting navy blue; the colour does tend to reveal any underlying blemishes.
 
DIngs are, sadly, inevitable; they show far less if you keep to as close to the original colour as possible or reasonable. Jissel's cabin and decks were that shade of pale blue that fades to a manky duck egg green until we painted them white. Every bump shows.

The hull, on the other hand is white on white. It was done over 10 years ago and could do with being done again, but from a few boat lengths away, you wouldn't know it. There's a reason why White Van Man's van is white.

I can't remember the hull paint, except that it was two pack. I worked with a professional. I rolled it on, he tipped it off with a foam brush. There was a decent gloss and you wouldn't know it wasn't sprayed from 10 feet away.
 
After Typhoon Ellen in Hong Kong in 1983 left our boat with a lot of cosmetic and some minor other damage including mangled toerails, stanchions, pulpit etc and severely scratched and scored 20 year old Navy Blue GRP topsides. The insurance assessor came out in a sampan two days later and didn't even get on board - he had about 200 others to visit. "just send us the bill....." he said and went on.

Boatyards were all far to busy that year to do anything but major work, so in 1984 the insurance paid for repairs and an Awlgrip Navy Blue respray. The hull came up looking like new, and still looked good when we sold it in the late 1990s.

On a 40 year old Contessa 32 you will never recoup in sale price a two pack respray job, but if you plan to keep the boat a long time it may be worth it to you. Unless you paint it the same colour as the underlying gelcoat any deeper scratch will show, possibly less if a dark blue is used than with white.

A skilled painter can get a remarkably good finish with a brush and one-pack paint - https://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/boats/a92419/images/ashore-qtr-ss.jpg and https://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/boats/a92419/images/ashore-bow-2-ss.jpg is a hand painted hull on a 50 year plus old Rustler. I though it was gelcoat at first even from three feet away.
 
doug748 said:
Hi P.

You might recall, I had my boat Awlgripped in c 2008. Dark Blue looks good, terrific when new, but it does mark up easily. I don't recall the heat thing being a consideration in our conditions but every scratch shows through white, even ones you might never notice on a white hull. The boat is still passable 10 years on but I don't subscribe to the idea that it lasts for 20 years or more

I think, In the Contessa 32 market, a hand painted finish would reduce the value of the boat but I don't expect you are thinking of that anyway. if I had it done again I, like you, would probably go for Awlcraft - did you go off the idea of re-gelcoating?
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Thanks Doug. Is the white that shows through with scratches the colour of the gelcoat underneath?
 
Yealm said:
Thanks Doug. Is the white that shows through with scratches the colour of the gelcoat underneath?
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No I think that's unlikely.

The original gelcoat remains but is blitzed pretty hard with the prep. A good respray will have a many coats - and primers and fillers are applied to fair the hull All of the fillers, primers and undercoats (AFAIK) are white so the colour is only in the finishing coats.

So although a respray may be blue over a blue gelcoat most tiny abrasions or scratches are generally exposing paint layers beneath, not any remaining gelcoat.
 
doug748 said:
No I think that's unlikely.

The original gelcoat remains but is blitzed pretty hard with the prep. A good respray will have a many coats - and primers and fillers are applied to fair the hull All of the fillers, primers and undercoats (AFAIK) are white so the colour is only in the finishing coats.

So although a respray may be blue over a blue gelcoat most tiny abrasions or scratches are generally exposing paint layers beneath, not any remaining gelcoat.
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Thankyou - great and useful info!
 
Yealm said:
I’ve finally decided to bite the financial bullet and get my boat painted.
It’s a 40y Contessa 32 with a brown hull- gelcoat’s thinning and discoloured with whitish areas.

I’m going with awlcraft but I can’t quite decide between navy blue and white. The decks are slightly yellow, the cabin sides by the windows, white.

My preference is probably blue, as perhaps suits the older boat, but I’ve been quoted an extra £1500.

Grateful on any views on colour and advice on why blue is so expensive, and are there any other downsides? Boat’s kept in the Plymouth area.

Many thanks!
Click to expand...
I can understand white paint over white gelcoat needing less coats, but white over brown will need the same amount of work as blue over brown.
White hull and a different white for the cabin sides may look wrong. Best to get the deck done at the same time. When you make the topsides immaculate, every bit of wear, tear and age of other parts starts to show, e.g. canvas work, metal parts, windows, spars, everything. Lots of bits get looked at more closely, more often than the hull.
Value for money wise, any boat under £100k in resale value, a reasonably skilled brush job in one-pot paint is probably a better bet.
 
jwilson said:
After Typhoon Ellen in Hong Kong in 1983 left our boat with a lot of cosmetic and some minor other damage including mangled toerails, stanchions, pulpit etc and severely scratched and scored 20 year old Navy Blue GRP topsides. The insurance assessor came out in a sampan two days later and didn't even get on board - he had about 200 others to visit. "just send us the bill....." he said and went on.

Boatyards were all far to busy that year to do anything but major work, so in 1984 the insurance paid for repairs and an Awlgrip Navy Blue respray. The hull came up looking like new, and still looked good when we sold it in the late 1990s.

On a 40 year old Contessa 32 you will never recoup in sale price a two pack respray job, but if you plan to keep the boat a long time it may be worth it to you. Unless you paint it the same colour as the underlying gelcoat any deeper scratch will show, possibly less if a dark blue is used than with white.

A skilled painter can get a remarkably good finish with a brush and one-pack paint - https://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/boats/a92419/images/ashore-qtr-ss.jpg and https://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/boats/a92419/images/ashore-bow-2-ss.jpg is a hand painted hull on a 50 year plus old Rustler. I though it was gelcoat at first even from three feet away.
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In a previous life I was a pro restorer of Vintage and Veteran motorcycles. All pre 1928 motorcycles were coach painted or small parts dip painted. Spray painting was not used on cars or motorcycles until after this date.

As jwilson says quite clearly, a good bloke with a paintbrush can do a very good job.

Trumpet loudly blowing, so can I.

Several of my restorations won significant concours events, all bar one painted with coach enamel and a good brush.

And you will save loads of money.

Just saying...............................
 
rotrax said:
In a previous life I was a pro restorer of Vintage and Veteran motorcycles. All pre 1928 motorcycles were coach painted or small parts dip painted. Spray painting was not used on cars or motorcycles until after this date.

As jwilson says quite clearly, a good bloke with a paintbrush can do a very good job.

Trumpet loudly blowing, so can I.

Several of my restorations won significant concours events, all bar one painted with coach enamel and a good brush.

And you will save loads of money.

Just saying...............................
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I take it that’s a YES to volunteering?? (No air fare expenses, bad for your carbon footprint.)(y)
 
mainsail1 said:
My experience is that if you use two pack paint it must be sprayed for a good result and the only robust, practical colour for a hull is white.
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I helped a friend brush paint the topsides of a 38' yacht, dark blue International two pack, that was about five years ago and I thought the results were excellent, good gloss and no brush marks, it still looks good. I put the paint on with a good quality 3 inch brush, he followed right beside me laying it off with a foam pad. It takes real cordination to get right, a proper walking access platform right round and a the discipline never to be tempted to go back. We started at one quarter and went right round without a break joining at the edge of the transom, really hard few hours. we only had staging for one side but we had a couple of guys who moved the trestles and planks on as soon as we cleared them. We did two coats, on different days, it actually looked better after the first because the weather was right.
I have also helped do a couple of boats with Toplac, nowhere near as good in big areas and a lot softer but that may be because the preparation and access were nothing like as thorough. I recoated the dark blue double water line stripe on our Moody last spring, just used Toplac, despite scrubbing the canal slime from the waterline several times it seems to be lasting okay, Two pack paint might have been more durable but I am a cheapskate.
 
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