The importance of painting in the naval industry

In this article we aim to address the importance of the painting process on vessels to avoid potential future damage and at the same time prolong their lifespan. 

Why vessels need to be painted?

The use of the specific paint used in the naval industry, which can be found both on pleasure boats and merchant ships, has its origin in the search to fulfill its primary purpose, the protection of materials. For that matter, it is about protecting the steel against corrosion, the wood against rot and aging, the bottoms of the boats against fouling, the concrete against deterioration and corrosion of the reinforcements and the rest of materials against elements such as pollution.

This list of materials and elements to be protected, without being exhaustive, offers a fairly complete idea of ​​those areas in which painting in the naval industry is the most widely used means of protection and often the only economically viable means. On the other hand, in addition to protection, other more or less obvious reasons why paint is applied on vessels can also be decoration, identification, signage, camouflage, security, image, decontamination or ease of cleaning.

Factors for better paint performance

The effective life of a protective coating such as paint depends on a great number of factors, despite the fact that only some of them have a direct relationship with paint for vessels, the following being the most prominent:

• The substrate (eg steel), its nature and the state it is in when painting work begins.
• The environment that, although being a factor of utmost importance, users have little or no influence on it.
• The surface preparation that have been carried out.
• The quality of the paint.
• Selection of the generic type of paint and the combination of the various types in one system.
• The application, not only with regard to operators and equipment, but also to microclimatic conditions during painting and subsequent drying or curing of the paint.

At SYM Naval we try to use the highest quality materials to offer a long lifespan for the boats we build. In addition, we offer different naval engineering services such as the development of custom projects or navigation tests, as well as maintenance tasks for our built boats as well as from other shipyards.