If your looking for a speed increase only - many American Cup boats use .................

Durepox - it was tested by the Otago Flume Laboratory and results showed that its satin finish gave a 15% less drag coefficient than a high gloss surface on rowing skulls.

See

Resene Products in Action - Americas Cup Yachts Finished With Resene Durepox

I had the bottom on my painted because the old original gel was an off white and for the money paint was a better option especially because mine is on the trailer and not stored in the water. Half way through the summer and it's holding up great. Everyone thinks its new gelcoat and not paint.




This was a before pic

I haven't figured out yet if the subject here is regular paint , a non anti fouling 'speed coat' or proper anti fouling .
I'm leaning towards it being anti fouling as the subject boat is of the size that it might be in the water for extended periods.

Guy says in the first post he is talking about special performance type paints. He mentions the Americas Cup Boats using an exotic type paint and picking up 10-15% more speed. So, first of all that's a sail boat...........I don't think a 100 mile an hour boat picks up 10-15%. That would be freakin' awesome though!! Now having read all this and keeping in mind the America Cup Boats spend millions looking for speed I'm not sure how valid any of this is. I say this because of the swimmers. Olympic type swimmers. You know breast stroke, back stroke, that kind of swimmer. A number of years back they came up with a body suit for those guys. Every time the elite swimmers hit the pool they set new records. The end result was they outlawed those suits. I can't swear to it, but as I remember it was based off the body of a shark. The shark has "pock marks all over". Pockets if you will. Turns out simply put, I'm sure there is so much more to it, the water fills in the pockets and you end up with water against water. Very slippery I guess. Now don't yell at me I not a chemist, but it was something like that. I know gel isn't the same, but it is kind of a similar uneven surface.

Aye , but some of the paints mentioned weren't 'performance paints' and nothing has been rejected . And the mention of an epoxy barrier coat is something that's normally associated with a proper anti-fouling job.

I'll assume then that it's a non anti fouling type of coating then .

Well, you made me go back to the first post.........10-15% less drag not speed! I was a bit optimistic I guess. Still I know someone on here will know what I was talking about with the swimmers body suits. Seems as though paint on the gel coat would fill in all the little pockets that were so important on the swimmers suit. Any way what do I know. I totally agree with Unlimited JD. Until it's a recognized practice it probably isn't going to fly with most boaters. That is until some big name say's he did it and went faster!

Yep , I'm quite familiar with the sharkskin swimsuit technology . Dunnit mentioned Petit Vivid which I'm also big on , and that wasn't shot down so that was more than likely where I was going with 'what type of paint are we talking about here' thing .

It's also well known that a burnished gelcoat bottom is faster than a glossy waxed one .

I service boats on a brackish water lake the has algae that is nasty AF , Will kill the bottom in a weeks time in the water .
The Vivid is bad ass .

I've been on a white bottom kick for about 35 years now and I've tried them all . A long time back I was impressed with the Awlgrip white but it leached green quite noticeably and I've been told that it's nowhere as good as it used to be . Went through all the Interlux attempts at white without much satisfaction either .
I just wish I had been able to hoard a load of the brilliant white from the old days that was tin based.
As it is now , the Vivid is the best I've used and the green leaching is minimal . I would imagine that the colors perform even a bit better as they can load more toxin in them.
History has shown though that as soon as you find something that works they end up stopping production on it .
btw , the paint manufacturers actually use our location as a test site as the fouling can be so severe .

Not in yall's league but I went from regular bottom paint to VC performance and picked up some speed, but that's expected. If you use VC don't put it above the water line, there is no UV protection and it will yellow. Could also keep it out of the sun and be OK.