OP here with one final update. It was a happy drive home from the marina on Saturday because we had finished sanding!
For anyone who is thinking about DIY'ing this task, it ended up taking us (56 year old husband and 46 year old wife) 24 hours to scrape and 16 hours to sand. Our
boat is 29.9 feet with a 10.2 foot beam.
The sanding was definitely easier than the scraping, but overall it wasn't the worst job ever. Just grunt work. Given that we have more time than
money, it was definitely worth it.
Painting is next, but that's no big deal - it's just painting. As soon as the temps warm up we'll put on the multiple coats of barrier paint, along with the
bottom paint, and we can cross this task off of the list.
Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions.