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.
