sailing casita

Our boat came from the factory a nice dark green, at some point it was painted with a similar green color (fiberglass boats don’t usually come from the factory painted, the hull color is due to the color of the gelcoat – the first layer applied in the mold). The boat was probably painted to restore shine that was lost as the gelcoat aged and oxidized. Although the paint still looks decent, the paint job was not high quality and it will need to be redone eventually. So should we keep the same color or change it?

Here’s a photo of a sister ship with the same paint scheme as ours:

Considering our plans for cruising the Mexican coast and the South Pacific a dark hull is not ideal. The dark paint will result in a warmer interior and some say the temperature of the hull itself could get high enough to cause expansion/contraction issues. So a light color makes the most sense, but what color? The majority of boats out there are white so my first instinct is to avoid white (it is just so bland and boring anyway), but if dark colors are out and white is out what does that leave – pastels? I can’t quite picture our boat being pale blue or green or yellow, etc. So I spent some time looking at photos of some more sister ships and I actually think our boat would look nice painted white. Her lines are classic enough that she doesn’t need a distinctive color to make her stand out.

Here’s a photo of a really nice looking Ericson 31:

I like that the bootstripe is similar in color/tone to the teak. It gives the boat a nice balanced appearance.

Here’s an example of a white E31 with a blue bootstripe:

This is a nice looking boat but the blue boot stripe is distracting, to my eye at least. These are just musings at this point. Getting the boat professionally painted is way too expensive ($8000 or so?) so if we do it we will be doing it ourselves and that project is way down on the list.