That sounds like things would start to get expensive.....but I used to work at a marine dealership and when someone bought a new boat they would obviously try and sell every accessory to them you could think of. Larger boats...the first thing was bottom paint. I have helped in prep and painting of many Larson, Bayliner, Trophy, Maxum, and Searay boats. We never sanded them. Just taped and painted.....I guess we did it wrong?

I had a qoute to soda blast my 29' cruiser last fall for over $2K. BTW, what type of bottom paint are you talking-- antifouling?

The instructions on the can of my epoxy barrier paint required the gel to be scuffed before application, then followed by the antifouling itself within an hr or so of the last coat of barrier paint. I never seen any brands of bottom paint say to just degrease/dewax, tape and paint. Not saying there aren't any that you can just paint on. Don't see how it would stick though??

A good bottom paint application consisits of sanding the bottom so the paint can adhere to the bottom properly. you could try a little spot to se how it cleans off and to see if its sanded or not underneath. If its not sanded then you may want to try to strip it with chemicals to give you the gel bottom back. if its sanded then soda blast it and have the bottom painted and it will look like new. Soda blast will give a good base to start a paint job.

Buy some captain lee's spra-strip remover and it will come right off without hurting the gelcoat. I'm doing it now on a small boston whaler. Works great, just takes a while. You can buy it from www.auto-ease.com