Proper ship maintenance is one of the key factors that have impacts on successful ships operations. It is important that ship’s crew and ship-owners strictly implement the required maintenance measures all in order to avoid accidents, unnecessary delays and possible detentions by organization conducting ship’s surveillance and inspection. Properly maintenance planning on board ship and also in the shipping company (on a fleet level) is one of the main factors affecting the maintenance costs. According to available literature, the most important factors are maintenance scheduling, choosing maintenance strategy, crew efficiency, and choice of the shipyard. This research aims to identify the key factors that have impact on ship’s hull maintenance planning and to provide a framework that can help the decision maker to identify and make optimal decisions on the required number of the crew engaged on the maintenance. Ship’s masters and officers sailing on dry cargo ships were asked survey questions and interviews, all in order to obtain their experience regarding the components of the ship’s hull protection by coatings. This article compares costs of deck protection by coating according to the number of the crew and maintenance tools as the variables having a significant impact on the costs of hull’s maintenance. The results may be used by the shipping company or other interested party in order to obtain a comprehensive overview regarding the interdependence of the deck crew costs on the total cost of deck protection by coatings.