With the epoxy all cured, it is finally time to apply the finishing touches. Drips and runs were easily sanded off, and the entire structure was painted with the same paint I used on my top sides and deck: Interlux Brightsides.
Brightsides is a one part polyurethane paint that provides an acceptable result. It won't be confused for gel coat, or a factory finish, but it is easy and durable.
You could easily spend your entire life perfecting your top sides, fairing out every last tiny imperfection until the result is the fairest and most perfect looking hull in the world! Then you could spend the rest of eternity sanding until you produce a blemish free surface that will be beautiful. When you paint this perfect surface, the paint will take on the shape of the underplaying surface, and as a result will produce the most perfect paint job the world has ever seen.
Your yacht's top sides will be the pride and joy of your life, and then some idiot trying to dock stern into the wind drifts over and kisses your hull. All of your work is ruined as your top sides now have a very noticeable scuff! This can be repaired, but it will take a lot of hours to get it back to the perfect state it started in.
The alternative is to slap some Brightsides on there and go sailing! From a distance, it looks white and that makes your yacht look like a white hull on the horizon. If something kisses your hull and makes a scuff, all you need to do is sand it a bit and slap some more paint on there! This lets you spend less time worrying about the conditions of your top sides and more time cruising (which is the whole point).
As far as durability, Brightsides is pretty darn strong for a one part polyurethane paint. My wife and I have lived aboard for 5 years, and we are rather abusive of our deck and top sides. We will slide heavy equipment on the paint, wear land lubber shoes on the deck, the works! The paint has held up well for the past 5 years with only small chips developing in areas where an 80 pound anchor was dragged on the paint, and where a motor mount scraped while dragging the inboard engine over the deck during removal.
This may sound like we don't care about the condition of the deck, but this is far from the case. We use our deck, and if the paint gets bad looking, we will re-paint it! Brightsides is so easy to apply that we do not fear re-painting. We simply view it as general upkeep that we do for our yacht instead of viewing it as an expensive and time consuming chore.
Since the top sides and deck have withstood some serious abuse over the years, this new addition to the cockpit will also receive the same paint and treatment. Thus, it was painted with Interlux Brightsides in preparation for its long life as our bed in the cockpit of the boat.
