I am having trouble getting a consistent(and affordable) quote to paint my 51ft aluminium ketch in awlgrip. Prices range from £10-40,000. Admittedly, my boat is a Huisman and I want to take her down to the metal and want the topsides and masts painted as well but some of the quotes seem way to high. Anyone been through this?

Heard it can be quite pricey though haven't experienced it myself. Which companys have you approached already?

A couple in the UK and also in Holland. I also talked to Royal Huisman as well and they came back with 50,000 Euros for the hull only! One of the UK quotes (Pedros?) estimated a 1000 man hours for the job at £35 per hour. I did get a much lower quote in Holland of 7000 Euros but I guess that would not have included stripping down to metal. I used to own a wooden boat in Turkey of roughly the same dimensions and Yat Lift in Bodrum charged me around £6000 for a complete paint and varnish job in 1998.

Thats a real nightmare. Could you not send it back to the person in Turkey and get someone to delivier it for you? Surely taking it further afield for cheaper would still be less than the quotes you are getting over here.

I did hear somewhere that someone got a training college to strip the hull for them. Because the students were learning on the job it was much cheaper that normal companies, though there is always the risc that something will go wrong.

Get them done seperately. I think there is a guy down in Weymouth called Nick Hore who should be able to strip it for you quite cheaply and then pay someone else to do the painting. They always charge more to do both part of the job together.

Thanks. I'm coming round to this view myself. Has anyone got any views about do-it-yourself sand blasting? Any special advice on aluminium hulls?

Haven't done it on aluminium , but is a fairly east task to do it yourself. Caution is the key - better to repeat lightly several times, rather than scrapping too deep to take it all off at once.

Even I managed to do a small amount of sand blasting successfully - it's not rocet science.... though it was on a chimney breast, not a boat hull so I could be a little more liberal.

I wouldn't trust you with a sand blaster on my boat Roxy - you're too mad!


Only joking

Don't know if I would trust myself either!