2 Topics. Best Ladder & Detailing Suggestion’s for a C D

[Lou]

Purchased a 2006 26’ C Dory. Looking for suggestions on 2 topics.
1) looking for recommendations on a sturdier Ladder to get in and out of the Water ?
2) what is the best way or product to detail the C Dory ?

Any Help to a new C Dory Brat. Would be Greatly
Appreciated

Lou

[srbaum]

Lou,
Is your boat a Cape Cruiser? Could you post photos to your C-Brat album?
On my 26, I have swim platforms, that have pull out ladders, from underneath the platforms.

[Pacificcoast101]

We took our Armstrong ladder and had a custom swing mount welded to it.

[kevinnuckles@icloud.com]

Type "boat" and "polish" and "wax" into the"search" function listed in the
right header. Many suggestions will appear.

[thataway]

Aside from dive ladders as on PacificCoast 101, most owners upgrade the swim step ladder. Going to 3 steps or better yet 4 steps. Adding a hand hold in the splash well outer wall or perhaps a railing on the swim step.

Detailing: Get a Makita 9237CX3 7" Polisher/sander. This will not bog down at low speed heavy pressure if you need to run a wool cutting pad. There are much cheaper Harbor freight tools, bur in the long run, you are going to use less time and effort with good tools. There are several random orbital for the finish stages which are not quite as expensive.

Foam pads; there are specific grades for each type of polishing. If the boat is really bad, you may need to wet sand, then compound with a heavy duty such as 3M Finesse-it. There is a whole series of compound/polishes with diminishing grits, and then finally a polish and Collinite Fleet Wax. Marine one makes a series, as does a number of other manufacturers such as Presta, shurhold, Chemical Guys, Smoove, etc--probably a dozen more.

Read about the various techniques on The Hull Truth. This guy gives some rudimentary instructions and has several videos. Disclaimer, he is from the Orange Beach / Pensacola area.

Here is another good tutorial on doing a badly oxidized hull.

Or you can pay someone from $500 to $1,000 depending on how bad the boat is. A good detailer will give you a boat looking as good or better than new. Ask to see work done by the person you hire. There are a lot of rip off artists around.

[Pacificcoast101]

Closeups of the bracket.










We've had this bracket on for fours years now. We climb aboard with heavy dive gear including steel tanks. It still works flawlessly.

[SENSEI]

One of the best add on I made was steps for getting in and out of the boat at the dock
http://www.c-brats.com/modules.php?full=1&set_albumName=Sensei&id=20200618_195333&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php

[hardee]

Nice work Roger. Took me a minute to turn my laptop up on the side but I got it figured and those look really simple. Thanks for sharing.

Harvey
SleepyC