Another to paint or not question

[ALUMINATOR]

Bottom paint that is. How much speed do you think I could gain by painting the bottom? I trailer my 27x10 single diesel and like many, it spends most of it's life sitting on the trailer but this summer I am planning to bring it down to Puerto Vallarta. It will be seeing up to a week at a time sitting in a slip so that also brings up the question of marine growth. I was hopping to use some brand of smooth paint that might also get me even a knot more. Since it only has 220 hp even a knot would be sweet. What do you guys think?

My guess is that for the cost and work it will not be worth it and one week of sitting it should be easy to clean off the growth??????

[Katoh]

A week in the water is basically bugger-all, I really don't think you need any anti-fouling paint for that amount of time. In respects to gaining a knot or two, personally I think it will give you nothing, may even decrease depending on how well or badly its applied. I don't know of any tests were they compared the coefficient of friction of aluminum on water, one raw and one painted, If they did I would assume that the difference would be tiny if any. Maybe on wrong! You might get Teflon paint that they use on frying pans makes the eggs slide straight of the pan.
If you need to do some work on the bottom of your boat and you have it off the trailer, or on a lift, I would say go ahead and paint, my opinion ONLY is it looks and is a lot better then raw. If you think it will improve speed or anti-fouling for a week save your money and your time.

[JETTYWOLF]

I can tell ya this much.....

Had some scuffs in my deck paint on my 26' CC Pacific "Florida edition".
Places where the FARWEST epoxy paint with micro no skid had wore very thin. And two spots where the deck chairs I supply chipped the paint from "over grown" people have sat and the rubber caps on the ends of the deck chairs had wore thru and the aluminum pipe chipped the deck paint.

THESE TYPE OF THINGS BUG ME.

So, I get out my $88 one gallon can of Farwest paint ($40 just to ship across country) and stir it with a drill and stirrer. Oh, this is some sweet shet!

I put a little in a clean small plastic snuff tin, and go to paint over the scuffs. Well, like the man at Farwest paints said, Only paint your deck during outside temps of ________ and ________, I'd have to look up the exact numbers again.

Long story short. Don't paint anything in the Florida heat and 100% humidity, in Late April. The stuff dries almost instantly.

Can ya imagine using the reccomended carpet roller and a exposed gallon? I'll re-paint the deck next November or December I guess. During the cooler temps.

Spot touch ups now, redo later.