thanks to all here who advised us about our first time boat buying (boat we wanted to get, but had dry rot we did pass on; and we finally obtained a used bayliner 2859 with a 7.4 mercruiser thanks to your helpful comments.)<br /><br />well, we made it through our 1st boating season after a very rough maiden voyage. many enjoyable outtings later and one couple of great new friends that helped us out big time when we finally arrived at our marina on our maiden voyage!!!<br /><br />now anxiously awaiting boating season on lake erie. and debating whether we need to strip the bottom paint before applying more, which looks to be badly needed.<br /><br />i'm not sure what type of paint is on there now. there is quite a bit of paint still left on the bow hull areas, perhaps little spots/areas that have chipped off. the stern hull shows more wear and looks like there is a thin colored film in some places, but in other places white shows thru. we originally thought we would strip to the fiberglass gelcoat and put on a barrier coat and ablative paint. but after pricing the barrier coat am wondering if we cant just sand it and apply a new ablative coat? what do you think? we didn't see any blistering after haul out or this spring--we had it in the water from july 2 to october 27 last year.<br /><br />if we do this would we have to spot coat with barrier coat, or just skip the addition of any barrier coat altogether?
