How important is it to do this if I keep it in the water for three
months during the summer?

The labor time doesn't bother me, but the performance hit is something
I could do without.

Would a wax job be good enough?

Thanks for the Seloc link.

If you keep the boat in the water for more than a month or so make sure you
bottom paint it. You may even want to consider epoxy barrier coating the
bottom to prevent blisters. It is not hard to do, just tedious and messy.
After 4 coats of the epoxy coat you can apply one or two coats of bottom
paint. A word of caution. This will slow your boat down at least 5 mph
at WOT due to the additional friction. ;-)