November 2025

Outside ship work picked up in Albany right where the New York City workers left off.

In April 1998, Lonax Painting completed work on the mast, thanks to Ray Windle’s $5,000 grant. It was a major step forward in improving the appearance of SLATER. In October of 1998, New York State Division of Parks and Recreation awarded SLATER a large grant, which allowed the hull above the water line to be painted gray.

July 1999 saw a lot of scaling and painting. Gene Cellini spent a day on the extension ladder getting the stack ready for painting. He corrosealed all the bare metal while the next day Tom Moore came in and primed the whole stack with gray primer. Chief Roy Cannode and Rafael Suarez worked on the Flying Bridge. The metal work is just about done and the whole area was about seventy-five percent scaled to bare metal. August 1999 saw Tom Moore and Gene Cellini working together to get the final gloss coat of haze gray on the whole starboard side main deckhouse, stack and superstructure. Russ Ferrer loaned his airless sprayer and finally, after a year and a half, the starboard side is all the same shade of gray.

In August of 2000, the hull painting gang has completed scaling priming and top coating both sides, port and starboard. The hull numbers "766" were painted port and starboard.

In August 2004, fireboat JOHN J. HARVEY tied up alongside SLATER and working from the HARVEY, volunteers rolled-out the starboard side. Tommy Moore, Stan Murawski, Erik Collin, Dave Hamilton, and Charles Miner worked on this part of the project. Another crew painted waterways on the starboard side: Bob Donlon, Ron Mazure, Al Vanderzee, Claire Oesterrich, Kira Zaikowski, Thessaly Bullard, Bill Scharoun and Joe Breyer's wife Marilyn.

In March of 2007, a grant from Tin Can Sailors covered the cost of scaffolding the mast so Doug Tanner and his crew could install the platform and SL radar, and one from The Destroyer Escort Sailors Association to cover the cost of repainting the mast. The first step of the project was grinding off the old radar platform that had been installed by the Greek Navy to support commercial radar in the seventies. All the old weld where the original SL platform had been had to be ground off. Doug Tanner didn't want to take a torch up the mast, so all cutting was done with a grinder and electric saber saw. Then came the lift. The radar platform was hauled off, which weighs about 200 pounds up to the 01 level. Two lifting eyes installed. We hooked the platform to the first chain fall and started the lift. That got us as high as the top of the gun director platform on the flying bridge. Then Doug hooked on to the come-a-long. That lift took the platform even with the yardarm and then Doug attached it to the upper chain fall. Doug and Gene Jackey went aloft and installed the leg braces and welded the whole thing up. A massive crane donated by Flach Crane and Rigging arrived on schedule and set to work. By this time, Doug had worn out all his other helpers and Tim Rizzuto was tasked with climbing the mast with him. Doug bolted down the radar. The crew from Flach were very professional. They rigged straps to our precious antenna, picked up and by the time they had hoisted it and swung around to the platform they were only about six inches off from a perfect line up. Doug guided the antenna into place and began bolting it down. The SL antenna had completed its 3,000-mile journey and was in place at the SLATER's masthead.

In May of 2010, with the assistance of Chief John Gagne’s Coast Guard buoy, SLATER’s entire starboard side and the transom was painted. Despite the use of durable epoxy paint in 2004, the side was starting to look long overdue for a repaint. The Coast Guard, along with SLATER volunteers Karl & Earl Herchenroder and Mike Dingmon, the starboard side was scaled and primed.

Drydocking is the periodic maintenance necessary to maintain the part of the USS SLATER’s hull that is under water. Taking a trip to Caddell Dry Dock and Repair Company, on Staten Island, in March of 2014, the hull was cleaned, and a reinforcing band of steel was welded around the ship at the waterline. The entire hull was primed and painted in Dazzle Camouflage. Dazzle camouflage makes it difficult to figure out the target’s distance and travel path. Joe Eckhardt from Caddell’s was the main point person there and supervisor Hector Sousa’s crew was welders, Vince, Luis, Fred, Paco, Julio, Danny, Rodriguez, and Lopus, who did a great job lifting, fitting and welding plates. Under the direction of Tim Rizzuto, volunteers from SLATER included Gary Sheedy, Barry Witte, Ed Zajkowski, Dave Mardon, Boats Haggart, Steve Klauck, Ron Prest, Bill Wetterau, Thomas Scian, Mike Dingmon, Paul Guarnieri, George Amandola, Walt Forney, Wayne White, Rick Meyerrose, Erik Collin, and more.[JM1] 

In 2020, SLATER went to Caddell Dry Dock and Repair Company, on Staten Island to primarily do maintenance on the mast but also check the hull. In 2015, rigging started falling out of the mast. This turned our attention to looking upward, as we were so worried about what was on the bottom, no one worried about what was over our heads. Thanks to the Maritime Heritage Grant, Ed Zajkowski and Barry Witte started to document what the original configuration of the mast was and what changes the Greek Navy had made. We fabricated the missing pieces over a three-year period. At the shipyard, the mast was scaffolded, which allowed us to remove the Greek modifications and install the original equipment that the ship would have carried in 1945. Part of the process, we hydro blasted and painted the mast. The hull was repainted during the dry dock. As SLATER was departing from the dry dock, Steve Klauck found water in the void space in the motor room, and SLATER was quickly put back into dry dock and a steel plate was welded on. Led by Tim Rizzuto, SLATER volunteers in the shipyard included Jack Carbone, Brendan Lutz, Ed Zajkowski, Gary Sheedy, Barry Witte, Blair Sandri, Bill Wetterau, George Gollas, George Amandola, Steve Klauck, Thomas Scian, and Brandon Easley from SLATER worked for 8 weeks along with Hector Sousa’s crew from Caddell’s.

Each May & April, when the HUSE crew rolls into town, they often will touch up the dazzle camouflage paint on the starboard and port sides.

Thank you to the endless amount of volunteers that have picked up a paint brush or a needle gun and scaled, primed, and painted the outside of the ship over the last 25+ years.