DINGHY CLEANING

Charmed's one year old white dinghy looks brand new again!  Over the last year, we have kept it as clean as we could, washing it periodically, usually while in the dinghy using rain water, or while in the water next to it using salt water.  But today we had the opportunity to put the dinghy on a couple of saw horses three feet high, and we had plenty of water with which to address the dingy dinghy.

Mary Kate ON OFF Hull Cleaner is fabulous and the whole answer for the fiberglass hull.  It literally is as simple as putting the cleaner on, waiting a minute, and rinsing it off.  When dry the fiberglass is ready for wax.

Mary Kate Inflatable Cleaner is fabulous, however it is not the whole answer for the hypalon tubes.  To get the tubes absolutely clean required using Soft Scrub with Bleach in a second step, after the Mary Kate cleaner stopped doing magic in a few spray on, scrub lightly, rinse off cycles.  The Soft Scrub worked best by applying it, scrubbing medium hard with a short bristle brush, waiting a little but not letting it dry, scrubbing medium hard, waiting a little, and so on.  It probably took three fresh applications of Soft Scub to get all the brown and green off the tube area at the waterline and below.

Now that the dinghy is again clean as it is going to get, we will remain diligent about getting it out of the water most nights.  We know it will be impossible to keep the dinghy clean though.  There is a lot of scummy water on the eastern coast of the United States.

While the two Mary Kate products mentioned above worked well for us, we were completely unsatisfied with ROLL OFF.  ROLL OFF is a blue liquid that is not cheap.  It didn't do a thing for the dinghy fiberglass or tubes.  It also didn't do a thing for the stains on the fiberglass of the mothership.  It may work well for other cleaning tasks.

For others with a RIB, keep in mind debris works its way into the space between the inside of the hull and lower part of the tube, where the hull attaches to the tubes.  It was amazing how much grass, sand and other goo was flushed out of this area, along the whole inside perimeter of the boat.