Lat year, I purchased an old beat up surf ski. Some metal primer, a couple of coats of white enamel, epoxied some timber plates to the back deck and atttached some bungies and it looked and worked a treat. I carried out any patch ups exactly the way I would with timber i.e wood flour & epoxy.
Had some fun with it and sold it for a couple hundred dollars more than it cost me. All in all, a fun project.
NOTE: i wash my boats with fresh water and store out of sun so plain old enamel paint was fine. Would consider some decent marine paint with good UV protection if I couldn't store out of sun.

Cheers.

actually, i saw the ski on ebay recently go for $650, I payed $150 for it. Amazing what a bit of paint and a metre of bungie can do.