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I assume you are painting the deck, rather than the topsides(the area between the waterline and the gunwales) since you mention fittings. If you are changing the color at all you should remove the fittings. If you are painting the same color it is still better to remove the fittings. It is possible to paint around the fittings if you're very good and very careful.
If you paint in the water you must be careful to keep the paint out of the water and the water out of the paint. You also have to watch the rigging and the mooring lines to keep them away from the paint.
It's hard enough painting on the hard, I can't imagine painting while she's rocking. Some marinas won't let you because of environment issues, so best to check with them first. I would haul her out if you could and do it right.
Do it on the hard and take the fittings off. If she is a Bristol with a cored deck, check for delamination/saturated core and repair before refinishing. I ran into core problems on a Bristol 30 that I owned at one time.
Dec. through Feb. are maintenance months is it really that vain to fix up your boat in the of season ? I am trying to keep cost down my job isn't very stable in this economy.
Nothing wrong with trying to keep her appealling to your eye. If the boat has known issues as typed above. I would look for 4 those, and get rid of them, and then doll up the deck.
Removing everything will make it look better, more proffessional. It also makes it easier in the long run............i2f
I've seen it done, even saw someone paint the hull (bootstripe to gunwale) red while in the water. When removing hardware check for access to replace them, sometimes you unscrew a cleat only to hear the nut drop off into some wormhole.
Painting the deck on water is no problem if you make sure to keep everything dry.
To remove the hardware, Tape a wrench to the underside of the deck, so it is holding the nut. Keeps from losing them and makes everything a one-man job. Have done the same with a wrench and driver bit on top to hold a screw while I removed the nuts.
If you have backing plates that are suitable for tapping, I use some carpet seam tape that has some incredible grip to hold them in place, that way they stay in position all the time.
I don't seal on the inside, because if there's a leak I want it to leak inside so I know about it, sealer inside would trap it in the deck.
With the right conditions I'd say it's totally possible to do a deck paint job while in the water... you'll end up with a better job all round if you remove what you reasonably can. That also gives you the opportunity to properly rebed everything and it's a lot less masking too.
But you are definitely weather dependent and an unexpected shower could make a mess of your good work.
I'll have to do things in steps because I don't get to work on the boat that often. I plan to remove all the hardware I can and fill the holes with some epoxy paste so that if it rains it won't get the core wet. next trip would be to sand and prime, then sand and pain. Later I'll redrill the holes and replace the hardware- with backing plates this time.
I'll have to do things in steps because I don't get to work on the boat that often. I plan to remove all the hardware I can and fill the holes with some epoxy paste so that if it rains it won't get the core wet. next trip would be to sand and prime, then sand and pain. Later I'll redrill the holes and replace the hardware- with backing plates this time.
That seems like a good plan. Just make sure that you clean up well after each time, certain dusts can make a real mess if it rains on them.
I seem to have missed this thread while I was away in December so here is my view. I have spent way more time working on boats in the water than out of it. When I worked on commercial vessels, this was the norm, they came out of the water for long enough to paint the bottom, replace zincs and check the prop and shaft. As long as your marina allows it and you have access to power, there shouldn't be any problem. We used to paint the topsides from about 1' above the water and up in the water and have done touch ups on the boot stripe many times. It is up to you to know the harbor and know what the biggest wake or wave will be. In Camden, ME the schooners paint their topsides including boot stripe in the water but the harbor is really calm there and they pick a low traffic day.
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