Difference between white paint and any other color on Tiki

[Sundancer]

Hello forum,
i'm interested to know if painting a Tiki all over (sides , cabins, decks) with a darker paint (Tan or any other color such as dark blue) would have a big effect on the durability of the wood. 

Does anyone here have any experience with that? 
Thank you

[Robert]

I don’t think durability is a concern, but heat should be unless you sail only in cold climates. 

Our light grey nonskid decks are very hot in the early spring sun of south Florida. By summer any non-white surface is too hot for bare feet. Heat buildup below deck is significant. We’re currently repainting all decks in white. 

Foam cored fiberglass boats get some insulating benefits from foam. Out wooden boats can get uncomfortably hot in dark colors. 

[Ian R]

My boat is painted white (International Mediterranean White 2 pack) so I don't have experience of darker colours.

However,  ref durability/heat, I have some observations from the boat being in a fixed orientation to the sun while being in 2 different positions for longish stays in the same yard.

The boat is marine ply/epoxy. The paint is the original paint, touched -up here and there.

I noticed that the heat from direct sun in very dry hot periods shrinks the ply/epoxy/wood in specific small areas, eg under the doublers for the lashings where there is relatively a fairly thick area of lamination. There is always potential for wood to absorb moisture or lose it unless it is literally deeply encased in epoxy or glass, or impregnated with PEG. I used to run timber-drying kilns so I have a bit of experience with wood and moisture.

Clearly, the thicker the wood, the more movement, if any,  will be detected. This induced micro cracks in the paint finish. I learned to look out for these and deal with them more or less straight away as any crack will let water in and increase the expansion/shrinking cycle, increasing the size of the crack(s), then rot occurs quite quickly.

Vulnerable areas are where sheet ply is laminated to wood.

It was easy to see from the two different positions of the boat that it was heat from direct sun doing most of the damage.

From this I resolved  always to have a white-painted wood or wood laminate boat, as darker paint in those areas would induce more heat and thus more cracking.