*WARNING* stupid question (maybe)

[camaraderie]

The only thing I've heard is that it is bad luck to paint sharks on your keel. It apprently leads to boom breakage.

[sailingdog]

Actually, you have that backwards, boom breakage leads to you painting sharks on your keel.

Originally Posted by camaraderie

The only thing I've heard is that it is bad luck to paint sharks on your keel. It apprently leads to boom breakage.

[Boasun]

As the U.S.C.G. pilot says when going out to look for a boat in trouble: Hmmm! A sloop with white hull blue trim and white superstructure... That only discribes 90% of the boats out there.

[sailingdog]

Painting the boat chartreuse solves that problem, and makes you much more visible in the fog and at night... Dark blue is horrible at night, white is terrible in the fog.

[jimmalkin]

Taronga was originally white, PO painted her flag blue awlgrip. 2 years ago we painted her whisper grey awlgrip after a number of conversations with the awlgrip engineering folks. Their experience was that darker colors (and this was our experience with the flag blue) tend to get streaky and chalky in sections and to fade in heavy sunlight over time. They also said that the pigments in the red, green and yellow tend to breakdown in sunlight more rapidly. As we had been doing extensive buffing and waxing on the flag blue and as the darker colors keep the interior hotter in the summer and tropics, we went for the whisper grey.

SD has the superstition right about Neptune reclaiming his own. I believe Herreshoff said something along the lines of "there's only two colors for a boat, white or black and I don't know why anyone would paint one black."

Maybe that era is just long past...

[sailingdog]

Well, if you look at all the older boats, historically, very few were blue or green.

[LarryandSusanMacDonald]

One caveat: if you're painting a white fiberglass boat a darker color, you risk curing any uncured resins in the hull and the pattern of the glass mat will start to show through - even on older boats.

The added heat (not inconsiderable) absorbed by the darker color that was formerly reflected by the white is what causes this to happen. If you have a temperature gun available - go through your boat yard and compare the temps of dark and white hulls. After doing that, imagine being inside of one of those dark hulled boats on a hot summer day.

Our resident expert painter here at Hartge's always warns customers against doing this. Some do it anyway and I've seen several boats that really look shabby because of it.


Stick with a lighter color - you'll be happy you did.

[MMR]

Originally Posted by jimmalkin

. . .pigments in the red, green and yellow tend to breakdown in sunlight more rapidly. ...

THANK GOD!!!

Chuckles has been threatening to paint our Gemini hulls BANANA YELLOW

[sailingdog]

This is a good point, and the problem is generally referred to as print through. BTW, if your boat is epoxy-resin or has areas repaired using epoxy, DO NOT paint them a dark color. Most epoxy resins start to lose a significant portion of their strength and soften if they heat up significantly, and being painted a dark color will often be enouhg to do that. Some aftermarket boat parts that are made of epoxy resin have warnings on them to this effect.

Originally Posted by LarryandSusanMacDonald

One caveat: if you're painting a white fiberglass boat a darker color, you risk curing any uncured resins in the hull and the pattern of the glass mat will start to show through - even on older boats.

The added heat (not inconsiderable) absorbed by the darker color that was formerly reflected by the white is what causes this to happen. If you have a temperature gun available - go through your boat yard and compare the temps of dark and white hulls. After doing that, imagine being inside of one of those dark hulled boats on a hot summer day.

Our resident expert painter here at Hartge's always warns customers against doing this. Some do it anyway and I've seen several boats that really look shabby because of it.


Stick with a lighter color - you'll be happy you did.

[Iflyka200s]

Now I'm REALLY confused!

(Seriously, keep 'em comming all this is fun!)