I have painted all three of the boats I have built(actually, I gell coated one...not fun). One boat has regular polyurathane on it. That went on nice but it doesn't seem to be that tough. The other boat has a 2 part linear poly- urathane on it. That stuff seems really tough. I stopped the paint lnes at the shear line of the hull. I used scotch brand tape to tape the edge. I asked the paint people about some of the ins and outs to get a general idea of what each type of paint needs in-order for success. Dark colors will show ALL scratches and all bumps and dips in the hull that were there prior to painting.