@Rich Stidger - great reply, there is a lot of good info in there. Posts like this is why I love to read this forum ... after all, a smart man learns from his mistakes, and a wise man learns from others' mistakes as well as his own.
seattle-hunter-31 - it's all part of the learning process. Don't be discouraged. Find someplace around you that carries the free magazine 48 North ( https://48north.com/ ), they will have a lot of boatyards and tradesmen listed if you flip through a couple months' worth of mags. You can probably use that as a jumping off point to find yards that will allow you to do DIY work including bottom work. Not sure about the environmental regs up there, I'm sure they are fairly close to what we have down here in California ... meaning, some places don't allow DIY work on this basis.
Anyway don't let anyone here get you too down. When I bought our sailboat, I had never owned any boat before. Although my brother had, and I knew a lot in terms of level-of-effort / PITA, I still didn't really and truly understand what was entailed with boat ownership. As a recent "DIY adventure" story, I've had issues with our outboard (our only auxillary), where it overheats at idle. I was very close to spending a lot of money to replace the motor since all my efforts and testing/re-testing did not succeed. Finally, I found another outboard-specific forum (marine engine dot com) where outboard experts were able to guide me through the process, and basically encouraged me to not give up. It turned out to be something relatively simple/stupid, and I saved close to $3k vs. buying a new 9.9 HP outboard.
In terms of bottom paint, we were lucky that ours was in fairly good shape upon purchase - we didn't get a haul out OR a survey beforehand (yes, SBO, it's true!) and we went another year before our bottom diver (cleaner) told me yeah, it's time for a bottom paint job. We were further fortunate in that our old marina was located next door to one of the only DIY yards around, though I just paid them to do it for me. Mine was a steal at ~ $1200 for our 25' boat (fin keel). I haven't seen it myself since it went into the water but our diver said it was a good job and that it looks like it's holding up well. I've since had it hauled and surveyed (separately) and we ended up lucky on the overall condition of our 33-year-old boat.
It sounds like you just have some more work to do on the bottom paint; it's doable and you can do it! Hang in there sir. Go pick up 48 North.
seattle-hunter-31 - it's all part of the learning process. Don't be discouraged. Find someplace around you that carries the free magazine 48 North ( https://48north.com/ ), they will have a lot of boatyards and tradesmen listed if you flip through a couple months' worth of mags. You can probably use that as a jumping off point to find yards that will allow you to do DIY work including bottom work. Not sure about the environmental regs up there, I'm sure they are fairly close to what we have down here in California ... meaning, some places don't allow DIY work on this basis.
Anyway don't let anyone here get you too down. When I bought our sailboat, I had never owned any boat before. Although my brother had, and I knew a lot in terms of level-of-effort / PITA, I still didn't really and truly understand what was entailed with boat ownership. As a recent "DIY adventure" story, I've had issues with our outboard (our only auxillary), where it overheats at idle. I was very close to spending a lot of money to replace the motor since all my efforts and testing/re-testing did not succeed. Finally, I found another outboard-specific forum (marine engine dot com) where outboard experts were able to guide me through the process, and basically encouraged me to not give up. It turned out to be something relatively simple/stupid, and I saved close to $3k vs. buying a new 9.9 HP outboard.
In terms of bottom paint, we were lucky that ours was in fairly good shape upon purchase - we didn't get a haul out OR a survey beforehand (yes, SBO, it's true!) and we went another year before our bottom diver (cleaner) told me yeah, it's time for a bottom paint job. We were further fortunate in that our old marina was located next door to one of the only DIY yards around, though I just paid them to do it for me. Mine was a steal at ~ $1200 for our 25' boat (fin keel). I haven't seen it myself since it went into the water but our diver said it was a good job and that it looks like it's holding up well. I've since had it hauled and surveyed (separately) and we ended up lucky on the overall condition of our 33-year-old boat.
It sounds like you just have some more work to do on the bottom paint; it's doable and you can do it! Hang in there sir. Go pick up 48 North.