Kirby’s Marine Topside Hull and Deck Paint

"Best colors—standard goods since 1846… We custom match an endless selection of classic, as well as modern, colors in a variety of finishes. We have always handcrafted all of our marine paint … premium ingredients and small, handmade batches.” When you see such words on a website, you know you’re in the right place to find a quality boat finish. And, indeed, for the past 179 years, the Kirby family has been mixing some of the world’s finest marine paints, all handmade in small batches. Today, the George Kirby Jr. Paint Company (Kirby’s for short) is run by George Kirby IV (seventh generation) and his wife, Shari, who continue to offer great products and exceptional technical assistance and customer service from their facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Audrey and I came across Kirby’s Marine Topside Hull and Deck Paint about 10 years ago when we were in search of a custom color for a special paint scheme for our Sunfish. George mixed up an international-orange color with just the right amount of red, blue, and yellow pigments, and also sent us a color-chip card of Kirby’s traditional colors.

Kirby’s Topside paints come in three levels of sheen—gloss, semigloss, low-luster—and three sizes—gallon, quart, and pint. They are described by George as “old school” paints blended from alkyd resin, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, talc, mineral spirits, and bentonite. Thicker than most modern one-part marine topside paints, which have considerably more solvent, Kirby’s Topside is user-friendly, but if you’re new to the product it can take a coat or two to get used to the viscosity.

Photographs by the author

When rolling and tipping, we thin the paint with conditioner to keep a wet leading edge. Here we’re applying the first coat of low-luster Maynard Bray Off White—one of Kirby’s many custom colors made available to all customers—over a single coat of Kirby’s white marine primer.

Applying Kirby’s Topside Paint

Topside can be brushed, rolled, or sprayed on wood, metal, and fiberglass that is properly prepared, dry, and clean. On most of our boats we apply a single coat of Kirby’s White Marine Primer as a bridge coat to ensure proper adhesion, unless we are going over an old coat of Kirby paint, in which case only a light scuff with 120-grit sandpaper is in order. The paint is easy to sand and, if properly hardened, does not clog the paper.

The Kirby gloss paints have fewer solids than the low-luster and, as a result, are typically thinner, but in any of the three available sheens, the opacity is excellent. A fine uniform color finish that completely hides the substrate can usually be achieved with two coats of Topside over one coat of Primer, although if you thin the paint—as we do to get the best viscosity to match specific brushes or roller covers—you may need three. When rolling and tipping we use a 9:1 mix of paint to Kirby’s Conditioner and find that the paint self-levels to a smooth finish with rarely a run or sag; where there are flaws, they are typically due to application error rather than any problem with the paint. A well-applied coat will cure in about 24 hours if temperatures are in the low 70s and humidity is moderate.

The paint has a durable finish. On the Kirby website one happy customer writes that they have not needed to repaint their kayak for 10 years, and we, too, have at least one boat that was painted a decade ago and still looks good. Of course, longevity will vary according to use—a boat on a swinging mooring, exposed to the weather year-round, will need to be repainted sooner than our boats that are stored on land and under cover when not in use. One high-profile customer, the 114′ Sailing School Vessel ERNESTINA-MORRISSEY, was painted three years ago and is still looking shipshape after continuous exposure to the harsh maritime elements of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Whether standard, existing-custom, or new-custom colors, Kirby paints can be ordered in pints, quarts, or gallons. The conditioner, described by Kirby as a “special, pre-blended solution of thinning agents formulated to control the consistency and flow of paint,” can be ordered in half-pints, pints, and quarts. The Skipper Bahamas Blue seen here, was custom-made for Audrey; the board behind the cans has two coats of the low-luster (satin) finish.

Topside paint is available in 67 standard colors but can be custom-made to just about any color. We recently created Skipper Bahamas Blue for our Bahamian dinghy—having found a color we liked in a range of interior house paints, we sent George the RGB color numbers from that paint’s card and he went to work. Kirby accepts orders for as little as a single pint—popular among modelmakers—and in most cases George will mix the paint the day he receives the order, and ship it the next business day. George keeps records of orders so custom colors can be matched for reordering later.

With nearly two centuries of service behind the company, the depth of knowledge at Kirby’s is second to none. Whether you call seeking advice on how to prepare a surface, apply a paint, or retouch a finish, George is there to help. He can advise on paint, prep tools, or the best brush-and-roller system for any given project. And, while Kirby’s does offer a variety of tools, brushes, and rollers at very competitive prices, there is no hard sell when you call.

Whether you’re looking for that perfect pint of a premium custom color for your historic model, or a couple of quarts for your sailboat, kayak, canoe, or rowboat, give Kirby’s a call—George or Shari will be happy to help.

Kent and Audrey “Skipper” Lewis love the smell of Kirby marine paint and pine tar soap. Their adventures are logged at smallboatrestoration.blogspot.com.

Kirby’s Marine Topside Hull and Deck paints are available in gallons, quarts, and pints, $122.99, $47.99, and $29.99 respectively. Shipping is free on paint orders over $150 within the contiguous U.S.

For tips from Kent and Audrey on hull painting, see “Using the Roll and Tip Method.”

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