Me and My Boat: What Color?

With the interior construction done it was now time to paint the boat.  Ah, but what color?  White with blue trim as I discussed with Marcia; no, Tim didn’t like that color scheme.  As he would say, “That would be spastically gay”. 

We found ourselves back at Menards where we must have sounded like an old married couple due to the amount of bickering between us.  This was the following weekend and we were there to buy paint for the boat.  We went to the paint section and Tim said I should get Rustoleum brand pain and primer also.  But what color.  Tim pointed out ‘Safety Red’ which was the same color as his boat.  I refused; I didn’t want to be a clone. 

At that point what I wanted was a light blue, having dropped my previous color scheme.  A light blue hull with a white deck, that’s what I envisioned the boat looking like.  Tim had logically argued that the easiest thing would be to chose two colors and forget the trim.  It made since, and would make the process that much easier.  Also, he and other people had stated that you want your boat to be easily seen, thus a bright and contrasting color scheme was the way to go.  Something like florescent orange would be a great color for a boat; it would be easily seen at least.

Unfortunately, Menards’ choices of paint of the Rustoleum variety were limited and there was no light blue to be found.  I didn’t want to buy expensive boat paint and all my research into the subject supported that decision.  You really only need anti-fouling paint if your boat is either going to be used in salt water; I.E. the ocean, or will be in the water for a prolonged period of time.  My boat would not be doing either; so a cheaper paint would suffice.  I had even looked into automobile paint, but it too is expensive.  Nope, cheap paint was the way to go.

Because I had labored long and hard to remove the hideous green paint and exposed the underlying layers; this paint job should, once applied, be durable and last quite awhile.  Unlike Tim’s boat which is already starting to show signs of chipping and degradation.  This is because he didn’t sand his boat prior to painting it; Tim has no patients for that.  He just wanted to get it out on the water, screw the refurbishment project.  That’s Tim.

The easy part in the paint choice was the primer.  That was a no brainer, or was it?  The primer was completely dependant on what color the hull would be.  A dark color would require a dark primer and so on. 

At that point the only thing I had decided was that the deck would be white, so at least half the boat was picked out including the primer; now for the hull.  There was Safety Red, the same color as Tim’s boat.  No.  There was also Safety Yellow, and Safety Blue.  The first being way to bright, the boat would look like a giant canary.  The second was also bright but was blue and too near the color of the lake.  Then the choices quickly diminished to an assortment of grey, black, and other less then desirable colors. 

Among these was Regal Red, a darker hued color then Safety Red, but not to bad.  There was also another assortment of Rustoleum paint including Handicap Blue.  It was a light blue paint intended for painting on Handicap parking spaces.  I liked the color, but the paint didn’t have the same properties as the other varieties we’d been looking at.

Hell, I didn’t know why I couldn’t go with a nice exterior house paint; I would have plenty of choices then.  But I guess the Rustoleum stuff was good for prolonged exposure to the elements and was meant for covering non house type applications. 

At this point Tim and I bickered incessantly about what paint to buy.  He being single minded and determined to stick with a Rustoleum product; while I interjected on behalf of the multiple different varieties of paint.  Fine, I would end up back at the Rustoleum section and look at my limited options.  After thirty minutes I finally went with the Regal Red, and still had misgivings as I went to the checkout counter.  At least it wasn’t Safety Red.