I worked a couple of summers back during college as a deckhand on a paddle-wheel riverboat. At the beginning of each season we had to re-do the outside floors. This paddle wheeler was a relatively simple thing in that it was made from a river barge tray and had all steel decks; so, this may not apply. What we'd do is first clean and de-grease the decks by mopping them with some chemical solution that would burn a bit when left on bare skin. After they dried, we'd paint the decks using rollers dipped into 5 gallon buckets of this epoxy paint. Each 5 gallon bucket first got a half gallon of stuff that was like really fine sand mixed into it. They had a big hand drill with what appeared to be a drywall mud mixer about three feet long attached to it. That was used to mix the "sand" into each 5 gallon bucket of the marine epoxy paint.
Although this sounds rather crude, the result was a surprisingly nice looking finish that provided excellent grip but didn't quite feel like 80 grit sandpaper. I think that the finished decks looked good because the marine epoxy paint stuff was rather slow at drying and it flowed out well. If I recall correctly, it took something like 72 hours before it could be walked on and about a week before fully cured. I know this likely doesn't help much, but my only real point is that it was easier than one would think and the result was better than one would think considering the application method.