If it's in your blood, you're never too old to be an inventor.
Just ask Norton Shores' Larry Gray. He's 77 and in the middle of a relatively successful launch of a new sailing product.
Gray, with his wife, Judy, have created, produced and marketed the TideMinder through their company Go With the Flow Solution LLC of Muskegon.
The TideMinder protects boat dock lines from chaffing due to tide or wave action. A series of balls attached to the loop of the dock line keeps the line from rubbing on a piling, Gray said.
It all began as an idea while hanging out at Hernado Beach's Gulf Star Marina north of Tampa Bay, Fla. Gray has been a sailor of S-2 yachts for years.
The initial idea came in April 2005 and the Grays worked all summer on the prototypes. The first was the use of roller blade wheels but a 3-inch diameter solid plastic ball worked better. The ball is bored to allow the dock line to slip down the center.
"They balls are indestructible," Gray said. "And they float."
For a 12-inch-diameter piling, a set of nine TideMinder balls retail at $49.50. A competitor's product is a small car that runs along a track bolted to the piling and retails for $225, Gray said.
The TideMinder is portable, staying with the boat from marina to marina, said Gray, a member of the Muskegon Inventors Network.
"I like to think it is the perfect invention ... something every boater needs," Gray said. "(As a manufacturer) it's not that perfect though ... it doesn't wear out."
The product was ready for marketing in October 2005. The TideMinder is produced by CamCar Plastics of Muskegon and distributed through Dr. Shrink, a distribution outlet of Mike Stenberg of Manistee, Gray said.
Some 2,000 packages of the TideMinder have been produced but Gray said he cannot say how many of those have been sold. The product was written up in Practical Sailor last June and Gray is working to get the product into the West Marine inventory -- the boating superstore with an outlet in Muskegon.
This is not the first product that Gray has produced. The retired music teacher and choir director also had made a vacuum cleaner accessory for shag carpets that eventually was sold to Clarke Floor Machine.
Larry Gray's TideMinder protects boat dock lines from chaffing.
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