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I think my real issue with the paint is that the current bottom paint is just ugly enough right now to draw attention to it, but even a halfway decent paint job would fix it's "eyesore" problem. Given how small of an area the bottom paint on my boat is is actually visible and how much time, money, and effort it would take to do a 10/10 job, I've decided to go a different route. I'm doing a little experiment now. I went to the boat and painted some 1 part poly paint (brightside) right over the bottom paint (underneath the hull). On some spots, I sanded and prepped and on some I didnt. Went back the next day and was surprised to see that the brightside had adhered to the bottom paint extremely well. I couldn't chip or scratch the brightside off the bottom paint. So now, I'm going to run the boat a few times and see if adhesion issues arise when the paints get wet. If the 1 part paint ends up adhering, I'm just light sanding/prepping and then rolling on a 2 part auto paint I found for $50/gallon (no kidding, at ipaint.us). If the 2 part starts chipping or peeling, I'm out $50 on a failed experiment. I'm ok with that. Worst case scenario, I'm stuck with an ugly bottom with peeling black paint instead of maroonish brown and green bottompaint. Haha, if that happens, I'll feel a lot better about paying the money to have the bottom sanded/blasted! Time to experiment. Thanks guys.

Help me here because I haven't use stripper before, but you're saying if I leave the stripper on too long and it turns to mush, it will be harder to remove at that point?

Fishnutz and micura, I love the paint stripper idea and then going to the orbital. I am curious to see how many layers a stripper can shed because I don't think there's that many. There's a green layer now, and what looks like a maroon/red color under it, but I think that's it before I can see a little gelcoat. I'm eager to give this a shot now. Thanks

Great, thanks for the advice. I'm not familiar with the electric sanders, so that was really helpful. I'll start looking at random orbitals.

Well this is encouraging to hear that what I'm trying to do is at least possible. I'm ok with taking my time and wearing protection for the sanding. For sanding this intensive, I was thinking about a rotary or random orbital sander. Any opinions on this?

Thank you Rich, that was very helpful. I'll see how much of the bottom paint I can get off before painting. When I sanded a small spot on my boat just to test it out, the stuff was really chalky and started coming off easily without a lot of effort. Getting all of it will be tough, but I'll try it.

Yeah I've heard the vivid is good stuff. Sounds good, I'll take a look at that. Good looking out

I want spiffy, not proper. My boat lives on a trailer, not in the water. It came with the paint, I wish it didn't have it. Unfortunately, the only purpose bottom paint serves for me is looks. 2 part is great but I don't think its worth the price and hassle because I just want to use a paint that looks better than standard flat black bottom paint, and brightside does by a mile. I am wondering about adhesion issues if I decide to use it, thats all.

I need your help here guys. I have a parker 18 cc that I keep on a trailer. I bought it used and it had bottom paint on it, but it is starting to fade and look ugly. I want to use a one part topside paint (like interlux brightside) instead of bottompaint because I want the gloss finish. The local boatyards keep telling me that topside paint will practically fall off once it's in the water because of pounding on waves and being immersed in water. I don't know what to believe. I've got interlux brightside on my deck but it takes a lot of abrasion to chip it. Also, when I'm running the boat, the areas by my scuppers are wet all day, and there's no paint peeling. On top of it, there's a boat with a painted bottom in my storage yard that looks great. The biggest problem that boat has are little scratches, but they're the type that can be touched up in a few minutes with brightside. So I'm not sure what the durability issues are all about? Periodic touch ups aren't a big deal to me. The one thing that does make sense is the problem of a topside not adhering well to a bottom paint for chemical reasons. I went into the boatyard asking if I could deal with this problem by sanding off the bottom paint as best I could before applying topside paint. The guy there never really answered my question because honestly, I don't think he really knew. He started telling me one problem was oil base/water base adhesion issues without asking me if I had oil or water based bottompaint on my hull (or seeing the boat). Then he said it was specifically copper content that caused the adhesion issues. I've read about the paint chemistry issue, but how big an issue is it? Like will the paint completely fall off or just the potential of something happening, likely a lot less severe (this is what I'm hoping anyway)? I'd love any suggestions you have. I was even wondering if there's some type of barrier coat I could use to solve the whole problem? That would be perfect! I really appreciate it guys, just want my boat looking spiffy for the summer! Thank you! Zack