Mark,
When we have painted our deck on Torsk, we have marked off half of the deck and then painted it, after the boat closed we painted the other half so it was good and dry the next day for the tourista's. OR if you guys waited until the boat closed and then painted the entire deck (it takes an hour or so with rollers and a couple of guys working at the same time..
On the Honolulu (SSN 718) we closed one hatch and painted the forward end and then reopened it a couple of hours later and did the aft end, that process took about 6-8 hours because we were painting the whole hull above the water line at the same time, and it was easiest for us on the weekends to do it (used to piss my guys off when I told them we were working on Saturday)
Darrin.