I painted my 1981 Supercat-20 two years ago with a two-part polyurethene paint and it has held up extremely well. You need the correct primer for the paint and it has to be designed to chemically bond to fiberglass. The guys at West Marine were very helpfull in that area. This was my first attempt at painting on a large scale so here is some advice: 220 grit sandpaper is as coarse as you want to start with. Anything coarser is too agressive and will show up after painting. The more time you spend sanding, the better the results. I spent two and a half months sanding and fairing my hulls untill I was satisfied. Cover your garage with plastic and tape the seams, then tape a couple of air conditioner filters at one end of the garage and mount a filtered fan forcing air in at the other end. Dust in the air can ruin any paint job! Also watch your humidity. When you paint, cover yourself up completely and wear an oxygen mask or some kind of forced air respirater. The paint is very toxic to inhale so a filtered respirater is not safe!!! Believe me, as I tried a very good and expensive filtered respirater and I came out of the paint booth in a real bad way!!! I was lucky in that as soon as the paint dryed, I set the hulls out in the Texas sun for 4 days, turning them over each day which seemed too bring out more shine but also finished the curinng proccess of the paint. Due to the meticulous sanding I did, I did'nt have too polish the hulls after curring.

Some of this info was learned at the school of hard knocks but most of it I learned by going and talking to several paint shops that deal with fiberglass. They were very helpfull and advice is free. The end result will reflect the time you put into the project. I hope this helps and if you have any other questions, fell free to email me.

Don Caldwell

Supercat-20

Nacra 18 square