Blacking

Blacking and its merits have been discussed at lengths by every boater through out the land, and water! I have been involved with docking and blacking boats now for longer that I care to remember and have applied every type of coating from the cheapest to the most expensive two pack paints, I have seen new hulls, old hulls, primed hulls and bare steel hulls so I reckon that I have a good all round knowledge of steel hulls, the first word I will say on the subject Is that no matter what steel boat you own or its intended use the hull needs regular painting to give it overall protection against corrosion, the more the boat gets used then the more frequent the hull needs painting, you can not escape that fact! In a similar vein to an engine being used, the more it is used the more it needs servicing, boats are after all an asset and therefore they need to be treated as such and maintained to a good standard so that when eventually sold on they give a good return, bear in mind a surveyor can tell if a boat has been maintained properly or not, there are plenty of different makes and types of paint on the market and to someone who doesn’t know the differences it can be quite daunting as to which paint to apply, we have seen all sorts over the years and some boats have even had antifouling paint applied to the hulls, there are no hard and fast rules as to what is the best to apply, after about three years of a hull being in the water, no matter what was applied before there doesn’t seem much left on once it has been pressure washed, so my advice is to go for a mid ranged product but make sure you have it done between a two and three year period, don’t leave it any longer, make sure it is blacked undercover if at all possible, and that the recommended drying times applicable to the ambient air temperatures are closely adhered to, the other thing to remember is that there is no substitute to quantity and the more coats that are applied the better (within reason) we always put three coats on, the first with a big brush and then the last two coats with a roller, our dock is booked usually well in advance, if you are looking for a quote give us a call. Fred painting the counter bands, or tunnel flashes as they are sometimes know.

We have a large dock and it can accommodate two boats at a time but we only put one in at a time giving us plenty of room to get around the dock

The boats sit on 'bostocks' which are concrete blocks about a metre tall, this gives us excellent clearance under the boat if we need access for repairs.

Regards

Simon