I want to be completely honest from the get go with this review, it absolutely 100% did not turn out either how I expected or for that matter how I intended. My plan was to look at my boats performance before, buy the Scrubbis, clean the boat, then measure the boats performance after. It didn’t happen, read on to discover what did happen with my Scrubbis hull cleaner.
As mentioned above I paid for my own Scrubbis (£120 from e-bay including postage) this isn’t paid for in any way. You’re going to get what really happened, with my own boat. The reason for buying was simple really, my boats performance had tanked over the later part of this years boating season and as I was hoping to get a winter season out of this boat for the first time ever I decided to give the Scrubbis a go. The problem is that when I drop to a regular cruise of around 14knots I start to lose options when it comes to where I can fish within the 3-4 hour flap gate window at Peel. There is a reason why I’ve done so little Bass fishing from the boat this year.
What Comes With The Scrubbis?
The standard product that I bought comes with a foam head scraper, 90 degree bend and 2 poles giving a maximum reach of just over 3 meters. The shorted you can use it is around 1 meter. In practice this was more than long enough for me to do one side of my boat standing on the marina pontoon I was berthed against. The 3m length came in really handy when it came to doing the other side, I was able to reach from my neighbours boat quite comfortably although on wider bays this could be an issue. There is no way that Scrubbis could provide a longer product though because even at that length there is an enormous amount of flex making it difficult to control the 2kg of bouyancy.
How Long Did It Take To Clean My 24ft Boat With The Scrubbis?
I timed myself and the whole process from start to finish including cleaning the head several times took around 40 minutes. I was aided by not having to move the boat and it was really just a case of slacking of the lines to push the boat away from the pontoon to give me an angle to reach to the keel. Manoeuvring probably took 5 minutes of my time with the other half hour plus purely being running the Scrubbis back and forth along the length of the hull. Honestly I was quite slow because it was the first time I’d used it, I was dealing the flex, the head wanting to spin and also trying to reach down to the skeg at the back, I had to give up on this purely down to the amount of flex that was going on, I was sure I was going to break it.
Scrubbis Hull Cleaning Results
This is where things went a little pear shaped from what I had intended. As part of this process I filmed the hull before and after using the Scrubbis. Unfortunately the GoPro didn’t play ball and the memory card corrupted several weeks later before I could post this review! So I’ve got no footage of the hull before and after. My other intention was to run the boat after being cleaned and see how the performance compared to my last proper trip out. BUT then came the last opportunity of the year to have the boat lifted and sorted for next spring…so I took it. With the boat out of the water there is no chance to see what effect using the Scrubbis had on boat speed. However in having the boat lifted only a week after using the Scrubbis I can show actual real life results of how much the fouling has been cleaned up.
If you look at the pictures below you can see where I have rubbed the boat fresh out of the water. The first image shows the amount of slime on a part of the hull I couldn’t reach with the Scrubbis properly. The second picture shows a part that was ran over several times. The difference was significant, slime was reduced by at least 90%. It was also noted by everybody else on the day that my boat was entirely clean of any thick soft fouling, no weeds in any shape or form. There were a lot comments on the anti-fouling I was using because after being in the water for nearly 2 years it all looked “clean” to the naked eye.
I had underwater footage from my last wrecking trip (lost when the memory card went bang) that shows just how many wispy bits there were on the hull before using the Scrubbis and all that was gone when we lifted. You’ll be amazed at just how much material you see being removed whilst you’re cleaning so this wasn’t a surprise. In terms of of the overall effect on soft fouling I’d definitely give it a 9 out of 10. It didn’t bring it back to clean anti-foul but it was close.
Scrubbis Ease Of Use And Other Tips
Trying to manoeuvre a highly buoyant thing on a long pole blindly under a hull is never going to be straight forward. It wants to go its own way, it wants to twist to align vertically instead of horizontally, the pole flexes and it’s difficult to keep the pole away from the hull. I checked when lifting and there was no damage done, a few bare patches of antifoul was as bad as it got. But like anything it’s a case of practise, by the time I’d finished I was much more comfortable than when I started and I’m sure the next time would be even better. One major tip is to use the shortest version of the handle you can manage with, the extra rigidity help to keep everything straight. Better to spend a little more time swapping handles as and when than just keeping it long for the sake of it.
The other tip is to do with your hull paint. The Scrubbis removes A LOT of ablative antifoul, do not buy this if you’re planning on using it more than 2-3 times between repainting. Now that I own it I’ll not be using an ablative again but will use a hard antifoul instead (to be honest Scrubbis mention this in the documentation). With a hard antifoul and using the Scrubbis maybe once a month I think you’re going to be in pretty good shape for extending the performance of your boats hull. That’s my plan anyway. If you’re only intending on doing say a mid-season clean with the Scrubbis then it would be fine for that, my hull still had a good antifoul layer on but I’d just not be comfortable cleaning with the Scrubbis every month if I knew it was going to be 18 months or more between boat lifts.
Overall then for what was a drunk e-bay buy the Scrubbis did everything it said it would do. Yes it could do with a better handle (hard when still keeping things light) and it’s almost impossible to reach the bottom of a deep keel. But it removed all the heavier soft fouling from the parts I could reach and reduced the overall slime by 90% +. I can’t argue with that. For the cost of 1 boat lift out of the water it could be an effective way of keeping your boat performing better for longer.