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February
2002
Offshore Magazine
A BOAT OF A DIFFERENT COLOR
An unusual boat in Dover, New Hampshire, has stirred
up quite a wake in city government.
By Dan Mathers
That hot-pink boat that’s been cruising around Dover,
New Hampshire, may look like something out of a Barbie
playset, but it’s actually the city’s newest political
heavyweight.
To publicize the need for a public boat ramp on the
Cochecho River in Dover - just north of Portsmouth - a
local activist group calling itself SaveDover launched
the colorful boat last summer.
“It was just the most appropriate symbol,” says Brenda
Whitmore, a SaveDover member who oversaw the work on the
three-person boat. “When you think of Dover, you think
of water and the rivers.”
Dover is surrounded by three rivers: the Cochecho,
Piscataqua and Salmon Falls. The city has plans to
dredge the Cochecho River and revitalize the waterfront,
but SaveDover members insist those plans should include
building a boat ramp. Currently, there is no public
launch ramp in Dover.
A local resident donated the wooden boat - a 17-foot
outboard - to the group last summer. But it needed a
major overhaul before it could be seaworthy - the boat
was rotting and full of holes. Volunteers spent the
early part of the summer working to patch and repair it.
When it was time to paint it, they decided on the
group’s signature colors. And at the end of July, the
S.S. SaveDover splashed down - from an out-of-town boat
ramp - into the waters of the Salmon Falls River,
complete with a bright-pink hull and green trim.
To drum up support for a ramp, group members spent much
of the summer boating down the Salmon Falls and up the
Cochecho River. “A lot of people stare at us,” says
Kathi Derby, SaveDover’s director of communications.
“You cannot miss a bright-pink boat coming up the
river.”
And it seems to have worked. Derby said that thanks in
large part to the boat, residents now know about the
push for a ramp. It became an issue in recent local
elections, she said, and all the candidates running for
office were asked about it. That has a lot to do with
the S.S. SaveDover. “Everybody in town knows that boat
now,” she says.
If the city ever does get its boat ramp, Derby says you
can bet the S.S. SaveDover will be the first boat off of
it. And it may be followed by sister ships. SaveDover
has plans to launch a sailboat next year, this time with
a green hull and hot-pink trim.
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