Cheap little scrubber

ROBIN BAILEY reports on a clever invention that could save lots of time and protect our marine environment.

Simple, inexpensive compared with the alternatives, and effective. That sums up the invention of a 71-year-old Picton sailor that is now on the national market.

He calls the gadget the Hull Super Scrub and it looks like being the answer to the prayers of the owners of thousands of moored boats: how to clean the bottom without slipping, gridding or lifting the boat.

Jim Hodder moved from Christchurch to the Marlborough Sounds 30 years ago and bought a 7.9m Gazelle trailer-sailer. The only problem was the deal didn't include a trailer and the yacht spent its life on a mooring.

Faced with the continuing challenge of keeping the bottom clean, Hodder did some lateral thinking. Having seen fellow boat-owners scrubbing away with brooms and bits of carpet on sticks, he decided there had to be a better solution.

His prototype combined some PVC pipe with a plastic oil container and a squeegee. It worked, but there was plenty of room for fine-tuning. That took 10 years and some serious experimenting with new materials, angles, joints and a buoyancy chamber at the business end.

Other boaters saw the veteran Picton sailor maintaining a clean hull without getting wet and wanted versions of his device. Things got serious when the inventor contacted Auckland friend Mike Heap, a plastics toolmaker. He became an enthusiastic partner, along with Hamilton businessman John Higgins, another friend, who added marketing experience to the project.

"We're a three-way partnership and have spent two years fine-tuning the scrubber, obtaining international patents and developing a sales strategy," says Hodder. "Now we are in production and it's just a matter of introducing the device to the thousands of boat-owners, and particularly serious yacht racers, who need clean hulls."

The scrubber is a basically an alloy arm that hinges and telescopes in various configurations to cope with the underwater shapes of a variety of craft. The action end has a nylon brush attached to a buoyancy chamber that keeps the cleaning head up against the hull.

The operator lets the device slide from the waterline to the mid-line of the boat and come back to the surface over the same area before moving along to the next strip, rather like mowing a lawn. The angle of the scrubber needs to be adjusted to do the rudder, keel and stem.

The key to the scrubber is the buoyancy chamber, which is partly filled with water to do the vertical sections of the hull. The octagonal tank means the flat surfaces lie smoothly against the hull. The top end of the telescopic arm includes a hose fitting that can spray water over the bristles if required and aids cleaning the topsides.

Once operators get the hang of the scrubber they can clean a 12m boat in about 40 minutes. It comes with detailed instructions and the optimum angles for cleaning different surfaces are also moulded into the product.

Hodder says it is possible to clean yachts up to 18m and launches up to 21m from the jetty, from the boat or from a swing mooring.

In our trial Mark Hills was tackling Changes, his Young 11, after a quick introduction to the unit from co-designer Heap. An interested spectator was McDell Marine chief Kim McDell, who sees the scrubber as a potential addition to the MRX fleet.

The scrubber launch is timely in light of the proposed biosecurity (hull-cleaning) regulations to be introduced around January 2005. The Ministry of Fisheries says the regulations will promote the maintenance of clean hulls through public education and the use and correct application of effective anti-fouling paints.

It will also emphasise the need for frequent cleaning of the initial slime layer so that fouling does not develop between regular slipping. It is recommended that maintenance removal of slime needs to be done monthly to prevent the development of encrusting animals and seaweeds and to activate the anti-fouling. The ministry says its research shows that regular cleaning improves biosecurity and protects our marine environment.

The scrubber developers say they have had no help from any of the Government agencies they have approached. Hodder says one of the problems is the daunting amount of paperwork needed to get a project into the bureaucratic systems.

"We have relied on word of mouth so far and that will have to suffice as we let the product speak for itself."

* For Scrubber inquiries, ph 0800 108 380.