Boat painting in Hampton Roads is a job most owners put off one season too long

We don’t publish a figure for this one, because a number given without seeing the boat would be a guess you would have to renegotiate later. The spread on a boat that size is genuinely wide: sound existing paint that needs a light sand and two coats sits at one end, and failing coating that has to be taken back, or blistering, sits at the other. Looking at the hull is what turns that into a number, and it costs you nothing.

Every two to three seasons for most boats kept here. That’s sooner than the same boat would need in colder water. The Chesapeake fouls hard from May onwards and it works antifouling hard in the process. Boats that get dived regularly through the season tend to get the longer end of that range, because the coating is being looked after instead of left to fight on its own.

For bottom paint on a 40 to 60 foot boat, 3 to 5 days in normal conditions. That covers haul out, wash off, preparation, coats and the cure window before launch. Cold or wet weather stretches it, since paint won’t go on properly below certain temperatures, and we’d rather tell you that than rush a coat.

Two to three seasons here. Running the boat hard shortens it, since ablative paint is meant to wear away in use. So does sitting in warm brackish water all summer, and so does a diver cleaning too aggressively. The one owners forget is long spells on the hard, because some systems dry out and never work properly again once she goes back in.

Yes, and more than most owners expect on a boat over 40ft. A buyer’s surveyor will look at the bottom first, and fresh, sound antifouling with a documented history says the boat has been looked after. A bottom that’s patchy, blistered or carrying ten layers of old coating raises a question about everything else, and it comes off the price.

On a small trailer boat, yes, plenty of owners do. At 40ft and above it stops making sense. You’re paying for the haul out and the yard time either way, the boat has to be staged and scaffolded, sanding antifouling produces waste that has to be contained and disposed of legally, and the job takes days rather than a weekend. Most owners who try it once at that size don’t try it twice. If you want a number to compare against doing it yourself, we’ll give you one.

Again, after we’ve seen the hull. You’ll find figures online in the $5,000 to $10,000 range, and those come from paint calculators run by chandleries: they price the materials and stop there. Preparation is most of what a topside job actually costs, and how much fairing a hull needs before any color goes on is not something anybody can tell you from a web page.

A full topside repaint is 2 to 4 weeks out of the water. Preparation takes the majority of it, application needs settled weather, and the finish needs curing time before the boat gets used normally. It’s a shoulder season job, and we’ll say so if you ask us for one in the middle of July.

Wrapping costs less at the start. It suits an owner who wants a color change for a few years and nothing more. A vinyl wrap on a boat lasts around 3 to 5 years in this climate, and it does nothing for a gelcoat that’s already failed underneath it. A two part linear polyurethane paint job costs more up front, holds for a decade or more, and fixes the surface while it’s at it. If the gelcoat is sound and you want a different color for a while, wrap. If the gelcoat has run out, paint.

It depends on how much gelcoat is left, and that’s something we measure on the boat. Gelcoat has a finite thickness and every compounding takes a little more. If there’s enough left, restoration is far cheaper and we’ll tell you to do that. If the boat has been cut back repeatedly over the years, or the color no longer comes back at all, restoration will buy a season and then you’re back where you started. We measure before recommending either.

Both are two part linear polyurethanes and both will outlast gelcoat by a wide margin. Awlgrip has the longer track record and an enormous color range, and it’s unforgiving about application. That’s fine when somebody is spraying it properly. Alexseal is more tolerant to apply, holds gloss well over the years, and repairs far more easily, and the repairs matter on a boat that gets used hard. We choose based on the boat, how she’s kept and whether you’d rather have the easier repair or the deeper original finish.