Fab Dock is a floating docking system that keeps your hull dry and out of the water. If you moor your boat or are looking for an alternative to a boat lift, Fab Dock may be the answer for you…
SKIPPER’S REVIEW: I am at the Palm Beach International Boat Show 2019 and I came across this alternative way of docking your boat while keeping it out of the water. So I’m happen to be here with the inventor and supplier, Australian guy, Dean Howard. Fab Dock is a pretty big hit in Australia already. We launched in the USA in the last year or so. What kind of response are you having right now at the Boat Show with this? Describe what it is for us.
Home Owner’s Associations Like Fab Dock
FAB DOCK: We term it as an in water dry docking system. What we found here in America are a lot of HOAs and a lot of marina’s have banned lifting systems for liability issues. This is an in-water docking system. Literally you just drive your boat into it, pump up the back end and it pumps all the water out. Your boat is still supported by the force of the water but a hundred percent dry.
SKIPPER’S REVIEW: Is there a risk of some of water getting trapped under the boat allowing scum and mildew to build up? How do you know it’s completely dry underneath the boat once you blow the rafters back up around it?
FAB DOCK: So as simple as the end result is at the moment it has taken our whole team nine years to perfect the whole thing. Every cut, every seam, every little design que, to position of the pump housing, the way the pump housing even faces, all works together to make sure that all that water gets pumped out. When your boat’s in there, you know that your boat is automatically 100% dry.
What if Fab Dock springs a leak?
SKIPPER’S REVIEW: This is an inflatable system, what if I get a hole, what if I get a puncture? What kind of warranty comes with it after you get it?
FAB DOCK: Yep, so the the product comes with a three-year warranty. Holes in it? We get the material flown in from Israel and It’s one of the toughest polyurethane alloys you can find so it’s really hard to do any damage to it. But if you do manage to do some damage to it, we have service teams with mobil welding guns. We can come and quickly weld a patch on there on-site. So easily fixed.
SKIPPER’S REVIEW: It’s been a big hit in Australia, how long did it take to take off there?
FAB DOCK: Yeah it’s been a very interesting journey. In those early days of R&D, you were running around selling one a month. At the moment we’re selling hundreds in Australia, it’s become a standard now. There are marinas with thirty to forty percent of the boats in Fab Docks. We get calls all the time, “Dean I’m about to buy a boat, I need to get my Fab Dock lined up.” When their boat arrives, Fab Dock is already there so it goes straight into it. What we’re trying to do is eliminate any need at all for anti fowls and bottom paints for a number of reasons. The main reason being environmental reasons. It’s a highly toxic poisonous substance. Every boat we get into a Fab Dock, is another 50 pounds or more poison now not going in the world’s oceans every year.
SKIPPER’S REVIEW: So Fab, I presume, being short for fabulous.
FAB DOCK: That’s right,
SKIPPER’S REVIEW: Fabulous dock. What basically this is replacing is a boat lift or if you don’t have a place necessarily to dock your boat.can you just moor this and then put your boat on it or how how does that work?
FAB DOCK: Yeah great point, so definitely it works in any sort of marinas situation but also in moorings. It’s probably the only docking system out there that’s 12-volt. You can actually just run it straight off your boat batteries via a solar panel on your roof. The fact that it’s solar-powered bring the eco credentials into play. If you’re in a Bay somewhere and you just got a swing mooring or just a mooring buoy then definitely tie this to that and your boat swinging out in the morning completely clean and dry.
SKIPPER’S REVIEW: Awesome awesome. Well good luck thanks very much for your time.
Go to Fab Dock’s Website to get more details or find out more right here on Skipper’s Review
