The average boat owner, however, will not want to waste the dream he or she has sitting on its mooring or marina berth. Even if they can't afford to fill the tanks and go for a trip down river, they'll still use her as the country cottage. Which means they'll want her to look nice, which means adding a little sparkle to the pride and joy.

So cleaners and polishes ought to be a growth market. On the cleaners front, the Americans seem to be far ahead of us and boat cleaning seems to be a much bigger business there than it is over here. The Swobbit range of brushes and accessories has always been big in the US, but has never made the transition to the UK market.

But now Barton has the range over here, I suspect things may change. It's the right time for the range...

And it's the right time for the cleaners people will be applying. More cleaning and restoration products are coming on the market and more companies are spending money to promote them to the consumer, so retail outlets should be picking up business.

But - and it's back to environment for a moment - most people still use proprietary cleaners from the local supermarket, rather than go for the more environmentally friendly cleaners designed for the purpose, with low foam levels and few of the chemicals used in the supermarket products.

So chandlers could do themselves a lot of good by making sure the cleaners they stock are truly environmentally friendly, without the nasty chemicals that take so long to biodegrade and harm the environment.

The impetus for this environment awareness seems to be coming more from Europe than the biggest users of these products, the Americans. In fact, the biggest and best known name in the business is Ecover, launched in 1980 in Belgium. It's now the world’s largest producer of ecological detergents and cleaning products.

And the name, by the way, can be pronounced simply as Ecover, rhyming the 'cover' with 'lover'. Or as E-cover, where the 'cover' rhymes with 'Dover'. Take your pick; neither is wrong.

But Ecover is not the only environmentally conscious company in the market. We have Factor O and Jewelultra in this feature with some interesting and profitable products for this expanding market.

Also in the cleaning market and from an automotive background are PowerSail Wipes. Extremely useful and easy to use, they should be another product going off the shelves at speed.

Without doubt, people will be spending more on low priced products that offer a great deal in looks for a little outlay and a little elbow grease.

But just as it's the right time for cleaning and valeting products, so it's also the right time for another product altogether - artificial teak decking.

While not quite in the low priced end of the instant looks market, the recent EU political move to ban the import of Burmese teak can only have boosted the artificial teak market enormously.

As a result, companies like Advance Marine Decking, Tek-Dek and Wilks with its Dek-King are making inroads into the traditional teak market - a market that might not recover once the industry realises how easy alternative teak products are to use. And how easily deliveries of real wood can be affected by political decisions that have far reaching effects on importers and users.

I'm told the new crop of Sudanese teak is as straight-grained as the best from Burma, but we'll have to wait and see on that score when the first batches are due in, I believe, this summer.

In the meantime, plastic is fantastic in this case.