We decided to have the bottom blasted to get past the MANY layers of bottom paint that have been accumulating on this old girl over the years. She was starting to suffer from "flaking", where the paint comes off in large flakes due to the original primer and bottom paint parting company. If we had painted over this situation, we would have only been buying a small amount of time. The new paint would eventually start flaking off down to the primer too. So let the "blasting" begin.