What’s New??
By Strictly Trailers
Well once again the Miami Boat Show was in town last month and what a show it was! If you’ve never been, I highly suggest you make plans to go next year. It’s amazing that any body over the age of 18 can walk in with the right amount of money or credit and basically walk out with whatever boat they can afford, put it in the water, and without any knowledge of boating or let alone a license to operate one, can venture off into the wild blue yonder! What a great country we live in!
But seriously folks, my intention this year, was to find out what new products are available to the general boating public that can make their life a little simpler. Due to the fact that I am in the trailer repair business, that is where I concentrated my efforts.
As I’ve mentioned in my previous articles the most important issue with a saltwater trailer is how to keep it from corroding. With that, one of the more interesting products I stumbled across was what they call the “Trailer Spa”. Sounds nice, doesn’t it. Just don’t tell your significant other the name. They may get jealous. The idea here is to be able to hook up your garden hose to the trailer, and the Spa does the rest. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. As far as price goes, it seemed pretty reasonable, even with installation.
After talking to the person in charge, I found out a lot of interesting things about this product. With the recommended mixing unit and a solution called “Salt Off” made by Star Brite, this spa will put out a coating of a Teflon based solution, that is environmentally safe (Green), that will literally wash the salt off your trailer. This process only takes about 2 minutes. At the same time it’s rinsing your trailer and providing a Teflon coating on wherever it sprays, it’s also rinsing off the bottom of your boat in the hard to reach places!! Imagine, a drip mist system for your trailer. How cool is that. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of crawling around underneath boats and getting salt all over my shirt.
One of my concerns with this product was that, after the demonstration I saw, there was not near enough volume of water dispersed from the spray heads. I have come to find out, that the “Salt Off” solution does all the work. No need to blast the salt off with large volumes of water. This saves water. Another concern I had, was the cost of the solution. Come to find out, it’s only about $2.00 per application. That includes running the solution through you engine also. Last concern I had, was, where do you buy the solution? Well once again, come to find out, it can be purchased at just about any marine supply store. Also, if you run, out and you can’t get to the store, then it won’t hurt to go 1 or 2 times without using the solution as it provides a Teflon coating when applied. Although, I would still recommend rinsing with fresh water no matter what.
To find out more about this product you can reach Fritz Wagor at www.trailerspa.net.
Some of the other products out there are the “Tie Down” torsion axles with removable posilube spindles. Another idea was powder coated painted aluminum trailers. These are really nice as I suppose you can have them painted any color to match your boat. Only thing is, after buying a new boat, who could really afford to have a color matching trailer? Which brings me to my last point, I’m ecstatic to drive by the marina and see that even through these trying times, people are still enjoying boating. After all, it’s less expensive than a psychiatrist. The one way you can still enjoy your boat, whether it’s older or newer, is to make sure you can still get it to the water! If you have any questions, comments, or remarks you can contact me, Kevin Charlton, at (305)665-6313, or strictlytrailers@gmail.com. Be safe on the road as well as on the water!
