Why can’t someone build a Tunnel Drive-Thru Boat Wash System?

Over the years, before I retired, 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 who had operated in 23 states were washing trucks, locomotives, concrete, airplanes, buses, police cars, mail vehicles, new car lots, houses, windows, and even boats in marina water. It’s actually hard to clean boats in the water at the marina, we did it from a pontoon platform. Now, I’d like to talk about this a second time if I may.

You see, when you’re on a boat and you’re trying to clean another boat, you’re brushing the sides, but every time you brush and put pressure on the hull of the other boat, you’re moving away from the boat it’s 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 picking up a lot of algae on the brush. To say the least, it’s very difficult, but I don’t think it has to be, and let me tell you why.

Also, by the time I retired, we had set up detail shops, truck washes, and even car washes at fixed locations, yes, the business grew quite a bit. Interestingly, it seems to me that it would be possible to build a boat washer that was more like a car wash. And this is how it would work. The ship’s hull would enter a semi-enclosure, although it would allow the masts of the sailing ships to protrude through the center of the building. The walls or sides of the boat wash would then be slowly moved inwards towards the hull of the boat to fit its exact size.

As the boat moved, it was brushed under and around the sides, while the top of the boat was rinsed with fresh water, after the hatches had been closed by the workers, of course. It seems that such a system could exist, it would be quite easy to wash boats, and they would line up to be washed, just like they do with a car wash. It’s not that this system is that hard to build; the question is whether the industry would accept it and whether the engineering to build such a device and install it would be worth the time, energy and capital costs.

Now, I have been to marinas in every continental US state that borders the ocean, and many marinas on the largest US lakes as well. In fact, I think this can work. Please consider all this.