Silverton 34C: We can't seem to wear out the ladder

But we certainly tried to wear out the ladder on Saturday. We're trying to compound and wax the hull and at one point in the afternoon, we had mentally counted climbing up the ladder 40 times. We lost track after that and as you might imagine, as we write this, we are bone tired.

The Connecticut River is fairly high but nothing very alarming. If the spring melt and the resulting freshet continue as they are, we should be able to get in the water in three or four weeks.

Today we saw the first boat go downriver. It was a 34 ft. Silverton from Petzold's, which is just north of us in Portland. He was running with engines at an idle or just above and he was making at least 8 knots. Good luck to him, whoever he was.

We paid our $220 bill at the boat yard and immediately started a new tab with the purchase of new zincs. Has anyone noticed? These things have gotten increasingly expensive. We put two new zincs on each shaft and a new one on each rudder. The boat yard didn't have the little ones we need for the engine water intakes, so those were ordered.

You've probably seen zincs before but since we took pictures...

As you can see from the zinc shots, we're going to have to touch up the ablative bottom paint. Before we began that, we taped and repainted the starboard boot top stripe. As you can see, it's fairly worn after two summers resting against the big fenders we use to keep ourselves off the dock finger in Norwich.

We didn't repaint the port side stripe because it has held up nicely. In our summer slip, that side has no finger and hence, nothing to rub against.

The starboard side stripe looked fine after painting. We used a 3-inch roller and tipped with a brush.

The photo makes the stripe look uneven but that's just the reflection. It looks fine.

As we compounded and waxed the starboard side of the hull (and the parts of the port side that we could get to) we noticed that at the bow, just under the anchor pulpit, there was lots of staining and discoloration. That's one spot we can't see or work on during the summer. We rubbed out all the crap and black stains and waxed that area.

Let's write yet another check

On Sunday, we noted that it was April 14, the last date we could get a discount on our summer slip. We called the Marina at American Wharf in Norwich and luckily Ian, a nice young marina employee, was on duty to take our check. We gave Ian $2,711.92 ($75.00 per foot plus Connecticut sales tax) and had a chance to catch up on some marina gossip.

Our dock box was still there and there was even a boat or two at A-dock. It's nice to walk the dock even though it's still a little early.

Then it was off to Portland Riverside for an afternoon of fun.

As noted above, the "fun" consisted of applying ablative bottom paint to the spots where it had worn off the green barrier coat. Using paint left over from last year (we waste nothing), we crawled under the boat and used a 3" roller and a small brush to cover the exposed spots. That actually only took an hour, a lot less time that we had predicted.

Then it was back to compounding and polishing the hull. This project isn't leaving the hull super glossy but it does make it very clean and smooth. We think we may have to live with the hull the way it is. After all, she's 33 years old.

The port side of the hull presents a problem when it comes to putting up our ladder to polish. There is a boat on a trailer quite close to us on that side. In fact, so close that we can't squeeze in between.

We may be able to find someone with a strong back to help us push it out of the way a little.

Before we left, we checked on the condition of the Connecticut River. It's doing quite well, it turns out. The weather has been good for a slow snow melt in Vermont, so the river is high but doesn't look as though it will flood.

This ladder is usually at a very steep down angle. Today, it was horizontal.