Scrubbis, true life story

[Twister_Ken]

Force 4 is promoting the Scrubbis - "This innovative cleaning tool makes it easy to remove slime & growth from your hull whilst the boat is still in the water. The foam cleaning head is mounted on the end of a cranked, extendable pole & has 2kg of buoyancy, so that it continuously pushes itself up against the hull meaning there is not much effort needed to use it. Simply push & pull it under the hull – just like hoovering! It will give you a faster & more efficient hull &, if used regularly, will even prevent the growth of barnacles."

I've got one and while I'm happy to confirm that it removes slime, it doesn't touch the green fringe that grows along the waterline - the foam is too soft to scrape it off. With Coppercoat on my lugger, there's no other underwater weed to tackle, but if there were I can't see the Scrubbis pulling it off in any quantity. So, good for slimy boats, not good for weedy ones.

 

[richardbrennan]

Not surprised it does not touch the green fringe on the waterline; I find that difficult to remove even with a stiff scrubbing brush!

How much are they charging?

 

[johnalison]

A friend of mine bought something very similar about thirty years ago. I think he used it once.

A better solution, which we used to use on our Sadler 29 was a long strip of carpet, preferably pre-used, with a line tied to each end. With two people you can scrub almost all the hull by passing it to and fro from a person on each deck.

 

[wiggy]

I use a piece of carpet attached to a board with a 5 litre obtained to provide buoyancy. Part of an old windsurfer boom is used as a handle. Cost nothing. Success 100%.

 

[johnphilip]

I have borrowed the overpriced Hullmate and now have a Scrubbis. The Scrubbis is easier to use but I think that neither are anything like as effective as a tide on the scrubbing posts.
They may be effective if used regularly ( as the makers say they must) but once the hull has grown weed they are both fairly u/s.
Cleaning a blade rudder and fin keel are awkward and you don't know until out of the water how thorough either gadget has been.
With a short finger pontoon I have to move the boat to an empty long berth and turn it around to do the other side. Not as quick a job as it seems.

 

[Puggy]

Interesting. I bought one and it is deeply disappointing. As the OP says, doesn't touch the seaweedy fringe that my coppercoat seems to positively promote the growth of. The best solution I have found is a wife in a wetsuit clutching green scratchy, enjoying a lunchtime swim...

 

[Burnham Bob]

It comes with a 'hard' insert which beefs up the scraping. mine did remove an awful lot of fouling - huge lumps of what looked like coconut matting. however, it wsan't as effective as a proper haul out and scrub and you really can't do a fin keel. The buoyancy of the unit is great for when its underneath something but straight up and down on the keel is not really possible - the upward movment simply takes it away from the keel. Tried pushing down but the parallelogram of forces (that's O level physics!) simply makes it impossible.

Slime and muck maybe, but real fouling not much chance.