[EBEACH]

Good question and one that continues to be tossed around. Trayder did his boat too, so he may have some input.

My 2 cents:

Re-finishing a boat is hard work any which way you do it. I would gel coat again vs. paint because I don’t think I could paint a boat and have it come out the way I wanted. Committing to spraying the top coat took a lot of nerve. I was always thinking to myself, “is everything ready?” I’m not sure what the course of action would be if you “missed” a spot with painting (prep or finish). With gel coat, you just go over it again.

Bugs and the weather. This can be a real problem in either case. Once again, I’d take gel coat over paint.

Paint will give you a much better shine right from the start, but I’m not sure how long it will keep that “porcelain” finish. Biggest problem so far for me would be staining. Buffing and waxing the boat is not a chore after having restored it.

You can sand through the gel coat, and I did in some places, but was able to re-spray those areas. If I were to do it again, I would use air dry gel coat for the first coat, and then go over it with waxed gel coat. I did mine with one heavy coat of waxed, but had to reapply in those areas that I sanded through. Get a gel coat spray gun, made just for that purpose (about $110) use a #4 or #5 nozzle and thin with styrene. I used about 10 gallons of gel coat that cost under $450.

BTW, I didn’t finish the deck, or hatch panels. That would be very hard to do with gel coat, unless you started with a flat surface.

Some people have mentioned thinning with a leveling agent. Both D. Herman and Ring Leader have used this. Reducing the orange peel would be great, but I’d check with the gel coat manufacturer first.

I had no prior experience with gel coating and have not had any cracks. I would recommend experimenting with it. First with a molding table of sorts and then on some fiberglass that you lay up. Talk to your local fiberglass supplier, not the fiberglass tradesman.

Good luck