The front tops of the AO's have the non-skid in the gelcoat. I saw one that over the sponsons was sanded smooth and painted. I thought it looked great. My question is, is the gelcoat thick enough over the sponsons to just sand the non-skid off and have smooth gel-coat without painting? I would leave the center section rough and add the hand rails.

if the gel is white the answer is yes if its any other color the answer is no. i sanded the non skid of my yellow 31 and i ended up with a white deck. i guess it would of been to eazy just to use yellow only. i thought that was bull****. no nonskid makes the boat look less dated.

The gel is white. I would hope that they used the same color throughout. That must of hurt. The more you sanded the whiter it got. I think the boat looks much better without the nonskid on the sides also. Down the center is good enough. So, did you paint it or have it regelled?

i gelcoated it it was a pain and hard to match the side color but it was worth it. i like my old junk yard dog much better now

I think it depends on the nonskid used. My bow is nonskid and I asked about that when looking into having it painted.

I sanded all the non-skid off my Scarab Panther and had no problems. Non skid is usually made with the existing gelcoat. Unless you have a different color non skid than the gelcoat, you should be able to sand it out.

Merlin, that sucks dude. I guess the non-skid was yellow and the rest of the Gelcoat was white? Sounds like a lot of work. Sorry man.

The non skid is part of the deck mold on the AO, It will depend on how thick the gel caot was appplied if tiu have to regel or not, some have been just sanded with no touch up, just be careful, it definitly looks a lot slicker withput the non skid