Dinghy & weed

[AJMoore]

We are lazy and tend to leave our inflatable dinghy in the water too long and the dreaded weed starts to grow on the bottom.

I seem to remember seeing somewhere dinghys in the water sitting on top of little 'rafts'. The weed then grows on the 'rafts' and the dinghy is kept clean.

Anyone know what these are called?

--Andy

[aahshowa]

I haven't seen any of those rafts in the USA. However, after having problems with weeds and barnacles, I painted the bottom of my dinghy with bottom paint. It worked great! If you have a wooden or fiberglass dinghy, you can use the same bottom paint as on your Nicholson 31. There is also a bottom paint made for inflatable dinghies which works very well too. If you have a hard bottomed inflatable, you would use both kinds.

[Harrison]

Here in the States, I often see jet skis and other personal watercraft sitting on top of small floating docks.These docks appear to be made of some type of durable plastic cubes and are formed with inter-locking sections. The jet ski driver actually powers his watercraft right up on top of the dock, climbs off and the jet ski sits on top of the floating dock-no weed or barnacles growing on its bottom.

[AJMoore]

I wonder if they have a trade name?

[Harrison]

Andy,
Check the following web site; you will be able to see the type of floating dock that I have seen used for PWC's and other small boats.

www.jetdock.com/ (http://www.jetdock.com/)

[AJMoore]

Harrison,

The float things I have seen are quite a lot smaller. They are basically little plastic floating rafts. They can't cost much but I remember thinking they were pretty good ideas.

--Andy

[Harrison]

Andy,
I'm sure you can find smaller and cheaper floating docks. The web page I sent you to was just to show an example of floating docks that I have seen.