Chuck
When I bought my boat many years ago I had her Awlgripped as part of the
sale. The boat has a rub-rail about 6 inches below the toe-rail. I had
them paint a black stripe there. The boat wasn’t originally painted that
way. At the time, the boat appeared to have a lot of freeboard and the
stripe lowered the appearance of the boat. More modern boats now have even
more freeboard. I think our expecations have changed and the 424 doesn’t
appear to be that high out the water anymore. I still think the boat looks
better with the stripe than without.

After about 15 years or so, the awlgrip started to look sad. It no longer
had a shine and there were a few chips and scrapes here and there. I looked
into having her repainted by a yard, but couldn’t justify the huge cost. I
would guess a spray job would run $6k or more these days. That’s a lot of
boat units, especially if you know the paint doesn’t last forever. She
looked great for about 5 years, then looked OK for another 5 or so, then
started to look shabby. Instead of paying to have her painted, my wife and
I did it ourselves. It’s a bit of work and it doesn’t come out as good as a
spray job, but it looks pretty good when you consider that it costs just a
few hundred. I’d guess there’s about 40 hours of prep-work and it took my
wife and me about 3 days to paint the boat. Painting is a two person job.
If you want more information, let me know.

Rich