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Painting a canal barge in the 21st centaury. Where the British standards have analysed all paint finishes so that they can be to a standard colour. So that matching of colours can be made easy. There is also the ral system that works on there standard colours. This conformity is standard across paints ,powder coatings, fibreglass. resin floors.Materials.even glass splash backs for kitchens can be matched to a specific ral colour or bs. I am not sure about hand bags and shoes as a male of the species I am not an expert. Except when my partner assumes that I am. All the big paint manufacturers conform to the same rules. Imagine my suprise when we painted our bespoke wide beam. Paint chosen and colours used Oxford blue and top lac cream. We followed the instructions and painted the dream barge. All finished and looking amazing. We then decided to colour match accessories. Fibre glass rub rails. Checker plate with powder coating. A bespoke barge board made from reinforced fibre glass. Front and rear canopies all the supliers chosen conformed to BS/RAL colour schemes. We approached top lac International to get the BS or ral numbers that we wanted to match. After a very long and protracted conversation with their Katie Miller Sales executive, the out come was that they did not conform to BS or ral numbers.The nearest matches were miles away. So I then contacted their European manager. Guess what It was my fault for buying their paint I should have checked that their paint was not to the industry norm. "We do not conform to bs or ral numbers" ""They have made paint for 100s of years and that’s the way they do it". I asked for a refund, and as it was my fault they would not give a refund. Great customer service. So Caveat de emptor comes to mind, Buyer beware. If they ignore BS and ral on colour matching what else are they ignoring when it comes to Regulations. It does worry me that this company does not warn customers of the fact that their colours cannot be matched or even exchanged when the error is exposed. But after all the customer is never right with this company. The price of there paint £27.50 for .0750 litre tin, so not a cheap product . We are now in a dilemma do we have a canal barge that is a total miss match of colours or do we bite the bullet and repaint all of of our dream boat to have a colour match. Including shot blasting priming and new paints plus our boat being dry docked for the entire operation. Atotal cost of five grand. So when you are choosing your paints for your dream boat ask one simple questiond does it conform to bs or ral colours. If not find another supplier of paint. Any ideas of how we can resolve the issue with out spending 5 grand will be greatly recieved. The paint manufacturer is not interested.