To paint or not to paint????

[schweidee]

I am in South Florida and 3+ years back I put 2 good coats of Trinidad SR paint on my boat as it moved into the water permanently. I use the boat pretty often and have a diver give her a scrub once a month. Over the last 2 years I have done a few touch-up jobs while the boat was on the trailer for other work but 50% of the bottom has not been touched since the original paint when on. In general the paint coverage is still really good in all areas.

I have the boat out of the water again and I am trying to decide if I want to paint it. If I don't use the boat for 3 weeks or so I get a little growth, mainly small hard growth, but they come right off when scraped. If I use the boat every week, I get nearly no growth.

So the question is to paint or not to paint???

[xyzzy]

Even a little growth will have dramatic effects on fuel economy and performance (speed, handling). If you are going to leave your boat in the water for three weeks at a time during the warm months, paint is really the only option. The Marine growth while you can indeed scrape off, is a huge hassle and this is what bottom paint is designed to prevent.

I had my 26' regulator in for 3 weeks this summer and ended up witih so much growth that I went from >2MPG to 0.8 MPG and took 8mph off my top end. Needless to say its now bottom painted, and I dont ever have to worry about it now!

[Libra]

If it hasn't been painted in 3+ years, it's WAAAY overdue. Paint it and once painted, don't keep it out of the water for extended periods.

[Diamond266]

Paint,Paint,,Paint