Spray Painting Our Deck

Finally getting the smooth sections of our deck (those without non-skid on them) spray painted with gelcoat. The gelcoat on the entire boat is still the original from when the boat as built 20 years ago, and we had a lot of sections on the deck where the gelcoat had worn off so badly that the fiberglass was exposed.

With all the repairs that Alex completed such as the jib sail track, the steps, the bow and the forestay chain plate area in the last few months, it made sense to finally get the deck spray painted with a fresh coat of gelcoat.

We'd normally do the job ourselves, but because we don't own a spray gun, Alex hired a local guy to do the job. 💸 We also considered other means of applying the gelcoat (paintbrush or roller), but previous experiences suggest that it never looks very good when brushed or rolled on... unless you're prepared to do LOTS of sanding afterwards (and of course, we weren't).

Since I'm not there to witness what went down, I'm handing this post over to

...

Alex: Would love to do the entire deck (including the non-skid areas which actually constitute most of the deck anyway), but have yet to find a way of properly preparing a non-skid surface for re-spray ... as far as I'm aware its pretty much impossible without completely removing the old non-skid completely and starting from scratch - something I'm definitely not looking at doing! So for the time being we put up with chalky gelcoat that leaves your feet white when you walk on it.

The preparation:

The original area of gelcoat (where it had simply worn off) were sanded with 80grit, then 120grit sandpaper. Lots of small (pinhole sized) cavities & voids in the fiberglass were filled with a polyester based filler & also sanded. Finally the areas not to be painted were masked off with plastic & masking tape.

The areas (such as the step, the jib track, the forestay chainplate area & the front of the boat) that I had repaired with epoxy (I do all my repairs in epoxy as I don't like polyester), were challenging as there's a lot of controversy as to whether gelcoat will adhere properly (long term) to epoxy. In the end I decided not to risk applying the gelcoat directly to the epoxy repairs, but to spray on a gelcoat primer 1st. Only time will tell if this was the right move?

After spraying the white primer, small holes/voids became more apparent & these too were filled (with the same polyester filler paste) & sanded carefully (so as not to sand the primer off), before the final gelcoat application.

We used Duratec (also referred to as High-Gloss) in the final layer of gelcoat - it was pushed heavily on us to use, but in hindsight, I would not use it again unless I was re-spraying the whole boat. It does make the gelcoat come out glossier, and has other benefits ... but for small repair areas it does not make sense - especially when the rest of the surrounding gelcoat is 20 yrs old. Besides, its costs almost 4 times what the gelcoat costs!

The deck covered in plastic to protect the areas that are not supposed to be painted

You can see the areas that need to be repainted

The job:

Spraying the jib sail track with primer

Spraying the forestay chainplate area with primer

Spraying the step with primer

Spraying the front of the boat with primer

After spraying the primer & filling the now-visible holes/voids, the surface had to be sanded down before applying the gelcoat

The step gets gelcoat

The forestay chainplate area with gelcoat

The front gets sprayed with gelcoat

The outcome:

What we used: Locally available Gelcoat, Duratec, Hot Shot polyester filler, lots of Acetone, lots of 1" & 1.5" masking tape, plastic, 80, 120, 220 grit dry sandpaper, 220 & 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper, rags, MEKP & Tack Free (to ensure the gelcoat dries hard & does not remain "sticky". [Duratec does this also, so you either use one or the other - not both]

Time taken: 7 working days - with most of the time taken up by preparation (of course). Actual spraying of all areas took less than a full day.

Lessons Learnt: Agree on EVERYTHING up front with the local tradespeople. Seems everyone (no matter how bad their work) will come recommended by someone. Don't believe what you hear! Definitely don't believe what the trades-person tells you ... they all claim to be experts & know exactly what they are doing - in reality, this is almost never the case. Supervise everything that they do as they will cut corners you didn't even imagine existed. 😀

Now what to do about our non-skid deck? Probably a good scrub!