TOPIC: Bare fiberglass deck and old gelcoat ready for ?

Here I am (pic attached),

I want a durable and resistant finish for the inside of my boat that I can brush/roll on. As you can see it is a mixture of bare fiberglass (with NON waxed resin) and the old gelcoated interior. Previously she has seen two shades of red and then a lovely carpet slathered in some sort of adhesive which I cannot seem to get off despite several methods.....

On that note I will probably end up mixing up some fairing compound over it on the STBD side it is bad and maybe putting a layer of CSM on it.... Tried heating and scraping, sanding, hitting it with acetone/thinners/solvents and scraping.... What small chunks do come off it is taking fiberglass with it causing more harm than good.. Sanding just melts it in place and on the paper making it even less removable. Really frustrating. I am scared to use stripper because I think it would soak up into this stuff and screw up my finish later on.

Back to the topic...
At this time I think I will be doing a two coats of gel coat, first non-waxed then followed by a waxed coat of gel.... Can I let the first unwaxed coat harden and then apply the waxed coat without prep or do I have to the second coat immediately after to avoid prep work in between? I believe two coats is required because of the dark red color I will be covering with white or light grey colored gelcoat and the fact I want it think.. Ive looked for more info on this and have come up with an insane amount of mixed answers. They sell unwaxed gelcoat with hardener, yet I see people respond to this question with "it wont harden without wax".... That just isnt the case from the research ive been doing soo?

If anyone has what they believe to be a better alternative I am all ears. Like I said I want a durable and resistant finish but also be decent looking... This boat will never be left uncovered and I really dont want to be doing more than a wash job after use for 'upkeep'. I also don't see spending high prices on finishing warranted or necessary with the limited use of pleasure this boat will see. This isn't a work boat, it wont even be fished from... Ive read of others here using non-marine specific finishes that last years on open sunbaked boats. Gel coat seems to be at the high end of my price range for this project, but the tried and true method.

thanks for the info.

One way to get rid of the old adhesive is buy some cheap bondo coat over the glue then use some heavy grit like 36 or 40 sand paper to remove both the glue and the bondo. The dust from the bondo keeps the glue from being sticky.

I need to try that one.

i had the glue and odd stuff but i didnt want to go back with carpet, saw what it did. so i used tuff coat covered all the imperfections and good choice of colors and the grit of the rubber is very easy on the bare feet.