refinishing over three different non-skids?

[Buddy_Y]

I'm resurrecting a 1973 C&C 30 left for 13 years in a warehouse after the PO passed away, and it's time to turn my attention to repainting the deck. I've never painted a deck before, so I'm looking for advice before setting out on such a big project. My biggest concern is that the PO, having died in the midst of a refit of his own, has left me with a hodgepodge of surfaces to deal with:

a) He stripped off the hardware and started filling/fairing the old holes and sanding some areas around those sites, but left much of the surface in that state. One cockpit combing, for example, is in that state. It has no no-skid on it. (pics #1 and 2)
b) In contrast, he applied moderate / light grey no-skid on the other cockpit combing. (pic #4)
c) He applied aggressive and dark no-skid in the cockpit bench immediately before the hatchway. (pic #3)
d) The deck and cabin top has mild / pale no-skid (with some staining from the warehouse and with some filling/fairing patches). (pic #5)

The amount of staining present suggests that he wasn't being careful, presumably because he knew he was going to paint over everything anyway.

Naturally, my expectation is that I will sand / prime / repaint.

But my biggest question involves how to deal with the three different kinds of no-skid (four states in total, if you count the areas with no no-skid at all). My research online suggests that hoping to sand off all no-skid is unreasonable, so I'm going to have to renew my pre-existing no-skid. Does that sound right?

If so, my impression is that I'll need to: a) Leave the aggressive dark no skid alone at first; b) Standardize the no-skid atop the combings by laying down some new moderate no-skid on both; c) leave the cabin top / deck no-skid alone. Then I'll sand everything (but not try to sand off any-no skid, beyond cleaning up some surface staining); prime everything; paint everything.

Does this seem like a correct plan?

[tkeithlu]

Basically your plan, but consider:

Repair the gelcoat in photo #1.

Choose a non-skid. Kiwi-Grip gets good reviews on the form. I've used it and like it. Rough sand all the surfaces that will be coated, not worrying about how much previous non-skid remains. Coat it all with the same stuff.

Paint to the edges of the non-skid, not under it.

[Joli]

Sand it all off and repaint. Non skid is an easy paint to apply and covers many areas that weren't perfect. I prefer Awlgrip with a medium grit but others have spoken highly of Alexseal. Take your time taping, it makes a professional job.

[psk125]

When we painted the deck on our J/36 the sander had no problem removing all the nonskid. This included the original pattern in the gelcoat and some subsequent layers of Interdeck. By being careful, we were able to leave the lines surrounding the nonskid areas visible, so we could re-tape the same nonskid areas on deck as originally laid out. Be aware that it will take three times longer than you think it will.

[Buddy_Y]

Thanks everyone! Definitely need to do more research, it seems.

[Gary Mc]

A random orbital with a good shop vac attached and you will have no issues removing the old non skid. You just have to get down the the original non skid, get it fairly smooth and then apply the new.

I have done one deck, and two bottoms, where we took the bottom right down through the original gel coat. Believe me a deck is way easier.



I have used Kiwi grip and it is very easy to apply, makes a good non skid but it does wear over time. I am about 8 years in and thinking about redoing it.

Good luck

[psk125]

In light of Gary's comments above, the 2-part poly we applied (with nonskid) lasted about 12 years before starting to look like it needed re-doing because the jibsheets wore the paint off the forward corners of the cabin trunk.