Poulton agrees that nowadays boat cleaning products must be environmentally friendly, especially if they are to be accepted for use in marinas.

For some time, Poulton's firm has been using Marine Clean branded products, which it can supply direct, or through the franchise network that it has developed. "The products are manufactured by a well established British company", Poulton told Boating Business , "and in most cases they are biodegradable and have full COSH approval for use".

Marine Clean's own branded and trademarked products may not be as widely available as some, but have nevertheless received excellent reviews in consumer titles - a product review in Yachting Monthly inMay 2000 said the Marine Clean Deluxe Boat Shampoo "was easy to use, (and) biodegradable"; it gave the Marine Clean Diamond Wax Polish a Five Star rating. Other Marine Clean branded products include a window cleaner, a bilge cleaner, a general maintenance spray, a cleaner developed specifically for stainless steel, and a teak restorer. These could soon be joined by a new range of specialist cleaning products especially for RIBs and tenders "and boats that need a bit more than the occasional shampoo", as Poulton put it.

"Our strategy now is to make the Marine Clean range of products available on the Internet, so that consumers can buy direct", Poulton explained.

"In this way, we hope that we can bring Marine Clean products to the attention of a wider audience without introducing a middle man and bumping the price up in the process. There are lot of American products out there at the moment that we can beat on price and quality, but we don't want to lose our edge in pricing".

More details are available on the Marine Clean website: www.marineclean.ltd.uk