If you’ve ever owned a boat – or another outdoors playthings – you know all too well how much trouble it can be to keep the stuff clean.
Especially when dealing with mold and mildew.
Countless items are available – all singing about what marvels they are and why they’re better than anything else.
William Howell calls it saturation.
“There are just so many things on the market that it’s hard to decide which ones are going to do the best job,” said Howell, 30, of St. Augustine, Fla.
It got to the point that Howell didn’t want to bother with any of it. So he set out studying various ingredients to get the job done, especially the challenge to make it all biodegradable.
He recently launched Xanigo Marine Products to handle cleaning boats, removing mold and mildew and coating it all with prevention material that lasts about a couple of months.
He’s been touring the East Coast, talking to marina owners and boating supply companies, showing off his goods and setting up staff lessons so that either a marina employee or the boat owner themselves can make things a lot easier.
And a lot better looking.
He was recently at Lynnhaven Marine, which soon plans to start selling the products – which includes mold and mildew stain remover, waterless wash to neutralize the remover, and Mold and mildew preventer to keep things looking sporty until it’s time to repeat the process.
Lynnhaven owner Chuck Guthrie was impressed.
“It’s a new, up-and-coming product and it looks pretty good,” Guthrie said. “It’s an amazing way to take care of things.”
Howell said the product, through testing, works well on just about any outdoors items subjected to getting mold and mildew.
And we all know how prone things can get in water-surrounded areas like our region.
“We wanted to get the job done and focus on the environment,” said Howell, a master captain and lifelong boater. “We’ve been working on it for about four years and two years ago went live.
“You can use it on cars. We deal with a lot of boat manufacturers to get the boats all prepared.”
Howell said his company hasn’t been pushing the product out too fast because of the market.
“A lot of the old timers and people that use other products are skeptical,” he said. “But we’re getting the product in their hands so they can start using it.
“It even works great on zippers and does great on cleaning caulking.”
Howell said that it would take an owner about 20 minutes to do a 25-foot boat – even less once they’ve gotten skilled and the product has had time to do it’s thing.
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