Polishing or paint

[harringtondav]

When i wet sanded I went up as far as 3000 grit.

Yes. Get a dual action/random orbit 6" sander. Use wet discs. You can find fine grit discs. For your boat I'd start at 1500 grit and work your way up about 300 grit/pass to around 2500. Finish hand sand with Meguiars Unigrit 3000 wet.
Then put a foam polishing head on the sander and finish with a high quality polishing compound. ....I like 3M Perfect-It Machine Polish 06064, and then wax.
Then every spring hit it again with the polish and wax. The gel coat will look new until you sell or scrap the boat.

 

[todhunter]

Should have went to 3000.

Nah, I don't think that was my problem. It shines great with the wet sand/buff schedule I did, but I think I should have spent longer time at some of the intermediate wet grits to get the bigger sanding swirls out.

 

[eggs712]

I just did a section of my gelcoat up to 1500 wet before switching to compound. It looks like a mirror with no swirls using a random orbital sander and a rotary polisher. Using a foam interface pad on the sander helped too.

 

[edgepa]

I was told that I couldn’t bring back the color on this boat and I should paint it. Glad I didn’t listen. Wet sand 80/1500/2000. Three levels of rubbing compounds/ polish. Finished with wax.

Correction to my post… my first pass was 800 grit. Not 80!

 

[Grub54891]

Correction to my post… my first pass was 800 grit. Not 80!

Yeah 80 will gouge it to deep.

 

[harringtondav]

But everybody seems to have a different tolerance level for cosmetics.

Apparently. I see several here are good at 1500 grit and go for the compounds. You get as much out of the process as you put into it.
I always gave my boat an annual gel coat a spruce up. By looking down the finish at a very shallow angle I could see the difference between just polishing compound, or a pass with the Unigrit 3000 before the compound.
You have to sneak up on a true glass finish. Polishing compound knocks the tops off the sanding scratches. Coarser grit leaves grooves that can't be polished out.