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I ended up doing both but it probably depends on if you are going to re-gel or paint the hull again. I stripped 3 layers of bottom paint off with Franmar's Marine Soy Strip Gel then lightly sanded since I was trying to preserve the original gelcoat underneath. I tried sanding first with an 60 grit on an orbital sander and it was taking forever. I also tried grinding it off but I was afraid it was going to damage the gelcoat under the paint.

I also had some sort of non skid paint on my deck and started the same process but quickly found that the deck paint was hiding a ton of spider cracks so I ended up just grinding it all off and will be re-geloating the entire interior...