Boat Paint or House Paint

Boat Paint vs House Paint

In one of the old Wooden Boat Magazines I had saved I found an article about boat paint. The article basically said that the main difference in boat enamel paint and exterior enamel house paint was the shine or gloss of the paint when dry. Boat enamel has a much greater shine.

The article went on to say that on an older boat a high shine lets defects show up better. I thought that was logical. When I panted our wooden day sailor’s hull I used a can of Oil Base Rustolium to see how it would hold up for a year. I was very pleased with the results. The paint had a nice gloss. It was not as glossy as a marine paint but it did look great.  If the paint was wet it was wonderfully glossy like boat paint.

When I pulled the boat out for some boat maintenance after a year in the water I was very pleased how he paint had stood up. In Florida you can keep your boat in year round. The topside bright work had not weathered as well as the hull paint.

When I scrubbed the hull down I was more than impressed. It almost did not need to be repainted. After a light sanding I repainted it with the same paint. It has done a great job each year. The paint is easy to get and less expensive then hi tech boat paint.

It worked well on the wood boat, but I do not know how it will do on fiberglass. This year I am going to try it on a fiberglass boat that needs the deck painted and fixed up. It is an older boat and the deck has been worked on and painted a few times. The non-skid on the boat was paint dusted with sand and then repainted. It was a very poor job and at this point  anything will be an improvement. There are 3 different colors on the deck now and the grit on the deck is fine in some places and extra coarse in others. It will be a nice test to see how it works.