Best way to remove bottom paint ?

[Bushwacker]

As Island Trader once told me, the most powerful paint remover is your checkbook! I had mine soda blasted, but it's expensive, about $1200 for a 20. I went that route because everyone I spoke to that had used chemical stripper/sanding method said they'd never do it again. A 23 might not be that much more, but be advised, soda blasting, at least the way it's done around here, WILL do significant damage to the gel coat, despite all the hype. Island Trader, FredH and I have all posted pictures of what the gel coat looks like post soda blasting. It will completely remove the gel coat in some spots, although maybe it won't be as bad if you had barrier coat under the bottom paint. If not you'll definitely need barrier coat after blasting. You'll be looking at a significant amount of filling and fairing. Check the post I made recently under Repairs.

If I had it to do over again, I would seriously consider using Interstrip, with sanding as required. However my bottom paint was applied when the boat was new, so it was ~ 38 years old and the Interstrip took off the old paint pretty easily, including part of the Signature finish bootstripe paint. The damage I would have done using that method would have been significantly easier to repair. I've heard that the newer bottom paints can be pretty tough to chemically strip, so you might try a spot before you decide. I stripped and painted the areas where I was going to put the boat stands before removing boat from trailer, and that gave me a pretty good feel for how hard the chemical stripping would be.