On my last boat, a Legacy 34, I had the ull awgripped Claret red. It came out beautiful. About a month later I tied up in a slip that was not mine and just slightly touched a metal clip that holds the dock together. It put abut a 2" long scrtach in the hull...I was devistated. Awgrip is hard, but not impossible to fix. A few weeks later, a new boat showed up next to me, a Hinckley 29. The new owner was not so good at docking and put two more small scratches on the other side of my boat.
I remember I would dwell on the scratches to the point that I would have to drive to the marina just to convince myself how small they really were.
We sold that boat a few years later, it still looked great.
The new boat has several scratches on both sides of the hull, and the hull is beginnning to look a little dull up close. But I refuse to have it painted for at least a few more years. I want to enjoy the fact that the existing scratches were not attributable to my bad piloting, but instead happened under someone elses ownership.
There is something to be said for a slightly used boat.
Dan