Over the years, before retirement I was involved in the vehicle cleaning business – as the business grew bigger and bigger, we found other things to wash. By the time I retired, our franchisees which had operated in 23 states washing trucks, locomotives, concrete, aircraft, buses, police cars, postal vehicles, new car lots, houses, windows, and even boats on the water at the marina. It’s actually hard to clean the boats on the water at the marina we did it from a pontoon boat platform. Now then I’d like to talk about this for second if I might.
You see, when you are on a boat and you are trying to clean another boat, you are brushing the sides, but each time you do a brushstroke and put any pressure on the hull of the other boat, you are pushing yourself away from the boat you’re trying to clean. That makes it extremely difficult. Now you can brush up and down, but then you end up rushing into the water, and bringing up lots of algae on the brush. To say the least it’s very difficult, but I don’t believe it has to be, and let me tell you why.
Also by the time I retired, we had put in detail shops, truck washes, and even fixed site car washes, yes the business grew quite large. Interestingly enough, it seems to me that it would be possible to build a boat washing machine which was more like a car wash. And here’s how it would work. The boat hull would come into a semi enclosure, although it would allow for sailboat masts, to poke through the center of the building. Then the walls or sides of the boat wash would slowly move inwards towards the hull of the boat to adjust to its exact size.
As the boat moved through, it would be cleaned by brushes underneath, and on the sides, while the top of the boat would get a fresh water rinse, after the workers battened down the hatches of course. It seems that such a system could exist, it would be quite easy to wash boats, and they would line up to get washed, just as they do with the car wash. It’s not that this system would be that difficult to build; the question is would the industry accept it, and would the engineering to build such a device, and install it be worth the time, energy, and the capital costs.
Now then, I’ve been to marinas in every single state in the continental US which borders the ocean, and a good many marinas at the largest lakes in the United States as well. Indeed, I think this can work. Please consider all this.
