Sheared waterline paint boot top stripe too low at bow

At haulout I noticed the waterline boot stripe is a little low at the bow?
There is a builders mark that was put in the hull which I followed when I painted this back in 2006.

I was thinking of raising this line at the bow area an inch?







From what point forward on the hull would you modify this line?
I am thinking a foot back from where it crosses the splash rail?

 

I raised the forward sweep of the line so that the bow end is about 1.25 inches higher than it was. Then I will raise the lower part of the line so that the anti-foul will rise high enough at the bow to keep the stripe clear of the water. Looking at it now to me it looks better.

 

It's common to raise both ends of the boot stripe, for visual effect and to make the boat look trimmed properly, when in fact it might not be. On the above picture, I'd start the bow sweep a touch more then equal distant from the bow to aft of the chine, which looks to be a tad more than 4' aft of the chine.

Yes, both the bow and stern see some sweep and both the bottom and top of boot stripe are swept, but usually not the same amount. The bottom of the boot stripe is often about half height of the sweep of the top. The up sweep aft is about 1/3rd of the bow's sweep.

On that boat, I'd be inclined to use a laser level and redo the whole thing.

 

How long does it take for that much growth to accumulate?

I've been in Florida and it's appalling what can happen in a month,compared to where I am.

 

Bottom paint is not as good as it used to be. I have some real old good quality bottom paint to put on. That was 4 years growth. We actually got in the water and scraped some but really that is a waste of time unless you do it all the time, it just grows back. First think was lots of little barnacles, the sponges took couple years to appear. Also had big oysters about 75 of them. The water quality at the marina must be great!

I was sitting in the boat and heard some weird thrumming sounds, I knew then I would never go in that murky water to scrape the hull.

I raised the top of the boot stripe at the front and back and to me looks much better now.
Front 1.25 inches, back .5 inches.

Started back like you suggested about 4 feet from where the chine seems to start. So I went back about 8 feet from the bow to adjust the line. It is fairly easy to site along and adjust using tape. Got to be careful as the tape can sag especially hard to join pieces of tape to keep it straight, best to use longer pieces.

 

I find it's the tension of the tape that makes the biggest difference. You have to apply enough tension to keep it off the work, but not so much that the tape sags or arches as it's being pulled out. I use vinyl tape for really crisp lines and it seems to work better then crape paper tape (typical painters tape).

 

Someday I can try vinyl tape. I have been using 3M blue tape.
I found if you get some color where you dont want it, take some ceramic stove top cleaner, it has a fine grit and that gets the paint off, with some effort.