What Craig says about silicone is good to remember. The 'secret' to silicone is that, essentially, once using it you are never rid of it. The residue defies nearly every effort to remove it. I have taken to scraping the fiberglass-- literally dragging a trapezoidal carpenter's-knife blade, held nearly vertical, over the surface till I have got to nothing but dry gelcoat. Yes; this harms the surface. But-- it's what you get for using silicone.
Worse, the stuff doesn't even hold out water. I can't tell you how many times, on other people's boats, I have removed silicone-bedded hardware and found mold underneath it. What's that tell you?
Craig also mentions using a really, really, good brush. I did my hull in Brightside with a foam roller and tipped it with a foam brush. The trick appears to keep the brush, whatever kind you use, really, really wet. Any dragging of a drying brush does bad things. Just do not use a cheap bristle brush because you'll have hair everywhere. Also, however good the brush is, since you're using it in an epoxy, it's basically as throwaway. Save your money.
We rolled in vertical strokes, the better to avoid drip lines. We tipped about 8 inches, and no more, behind the rolling. That was two roller strokes with the 4-inch roller (that's right: 4" wide). As soon as the tipper guy got too far behind the roller guy, bad things happened. Right now I have two such spots that need to be done over. This paint skins over in about 4 minutes.
Also, remember that Brightside will not hide surface imperfections. Though it goes on really, really well, though it's easy to use, though the finish is topnotch, it goes on very thin and doesn't hide much, necessitating multiple coats (like two minimum, three recommended, more if you need it). I wrote about this in my blog (link below), including about the 'thin white panties problem' (see the blog) and other things to look for.
The worse surface imperfection that Brightside will not hide is gelcoat cracks. I overlooked one section of them and then deliberately painted over them (they were not bad) just to see how it turned out. Result: this was a waste of work. The cracks and every little divot in the finish show up, just painted in pretty Brightside. Though it is an epoxy, and that may lull you into think it does wonders, it is not 'high-hiding' latex paint! However it is easily sanded and, provided you can 'feather in' well, you can patch it with more paint, such as after you have to readdress the hull for something.
When the shrink wrap comes off I am putting a whole third coat over this hull this spring; so that'll mean more reports in the blog. I am also applying the hull graphics, using Brightside and fine-line tape. I see no reason to apply 4" wide tape in lieu of paint. My friend with our old Raider 33 is doing that and I fear he's gonna regret it.
