Joe, I’ll take a shot and an answer.
I have only used two-part marine paints once, Inter-lux paint years ago helping refurbish a friend’s sailboat. I recall it being pricey at the time, and he left the excess A & B parts with me, where it lingered in my shop for a decade or more. Whenever I considered using it I looked up the additional A & B parts I would need to buy and said “Nope, not happening”. Never happened.
I have painted a dozen canoes and kayaks, with everything from spray paint (never again) to regular enamel (meh) to different Topside paints (yay).
The two part marine paints are intended/used for hulls that stay in the water year round or at least long term. The Topside paints are used on the, uh, topside of those boats, where the crew walks around, and work very well on the outside of a canoe.
There are various Topside paints. Rustoleum Topside runs $18 a quart, and is decent stuff. Pettit EZ-Poxy is pricier, more like $50 a quart, but to my mind worth the extra money for a quality paint job on a quality boat.
A quart of any paint, rolled (4” foam cigar roller) and tipped (4” foam brush lightly dragged along the rolled still-wet roller coat) will put three coats on a 16-ish foot canoe. A second coat is always needed, and by the third coat your feel for rolling and tipping technique will be much improved.
Rolling and tipping multiple coats of paint is a better warm weather task, not just for paint-cure temperature, but also because the best finish can be achieved by wet sanding before recoating , so outside with hose and bucket.
A thread with lots of prep-work, taping, painting and rolling/tipping and color choice discussion:
https://myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=48607
