Article by Larry Jock
One day I was walking around the boatyard and noticed a few guys furiously scrubbing on the props of their boat. It reminded me of an article I wrote in this column two years ago which the Mad Scrubbers obviously hadn’t read because they would have saved themselves a load of time and trouble by using a product I reviewed called Acid Magic.
This product really lives up to its claims when it comes to removing barnacles and scale from props and other boat surfaces. You literally pour some Acid Magic on a rag and wipe the prop clean, restoring it to its original, shiny appearance.
The product is safe to handle. No gloves or special precautions are needed. The company considers it a “muriatic acid replacement that is safer to ship, store and handle. It offers the cleaning and pH reduction of powerful acids while providing increased safety and usability.”
The company claims that Acid Magic will effectively clean algae, barnacles and scale from boat hulls. You can even use it in raw water coolant systems as a flush to remove build-up.
If you have ever spent time trying to scrub scale off of a prop, you know what a pain in the neck it is. This product is worth every penny, and is a mainstay in my dock box every year.
You know how sometimes you don’t realize how important something is until you don’t have it anymore? Well, that’s what happened to me when I had to send my RipCurl tide watch back to the company to get a new module put it.
I purchased my RipCurl Oceantide watch (left) about 6 years ago and I can’t tell you how many times it came in handy when I was wondering what state the current tide was at or when the next high/low tide was going to occur. It really comes in handy, and I don’t think too many fishermen really think about purchasing one. It is easy to program and some watches even allow you to track the tide for multiple locations.
The RipCurl Oceantide watch is made of stainless steel and comes with a rubber wrist band, date and time, a pre-programmed moon phases, dual time, countdown timer, stop watch and an alarm.
The RipCurl Oceantide retails for $110.00.
If you are looking for a fancier looking tide watch, Park Place Jewelers in Ocean City is selling a tide watch manufactured by Reactor Watches called the Graviton (right). This is a good looking watch and features stainless steel construction, tide information for 275 worldwide locations, dual alarm and chronograp and multiple countdown timers. Ocean City is not included in their 275 worldwide locations, but you can easily create the location yourself.
The cool feature about this watch, besides the tide function, is that with a push of a button, you can eliminate the digital readouts and be left with an analog look.
The Graviton comes in 4 models with two featuring black rubber wristbands and the other two having stainless steel wristbands.
The watch retails for between $300 and $350 depending on which model you choose.
If you don’t have a tidewatch, give one a try. You’ll wonder how you lived without it.
