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Your Sand Solution
by Daryl A. Smith
Vice President of Marketing
Surf Splash, Inc.
Lawyer, philanthropist, and inventor Jim Franklin always dreamed of being a successful entrepreneur. The former mechanic worked his way through college and law school to enjoy a prominent legal career spanning two decades with stints as a prosecutor, judge and county attorney. Despite his accomplishments, however, he knew he would never be satisfied until he could put his creative tinkering skills to use in the business world. Thanks to his latest invention, the “Surf Splash,” Jim has finally realized his dream and closed his law office for good.
The Surf Splash is an automatic foot shower for beach properties, which has been dubbed “the most innovative product of its kind in the resort industry” by hotel maintenance staff and managers at a number of resort destinations. Jim originally came up with the idea for the Surf Splash as a convenience item about twelve years ago. He reminisces, “My girlfriend and I had been to the beach several times during the summer, and she loved to sunbathe. This meant I had to carry a number of accessories (blanket, towels, cooler, radio, etc.) from our hotel room out to the beach. When it came time to go in for the day, I would gather up our ‘stuff’, walk to the hotel, put everything down again to wash the sand from my feet, and then pick everything back up. This was not only frustrating but time consuming! I found myself wishing that beach resorts could have automatic foot showers for the convenience of their guests.” And so began Jim’s lifelong obsession with starting his own business.
Jim began searching hotels for a similar product, but he only found showers and garden hoses… the same frustrating devices that gave him the idea for the Surf Splash in the first place. His research led to two interesting discoveries. First, he noticed guests would constantly leave the showers running. His invention would shut off automatically, thus saving water. Secondly, he learned that the greatest value of the Surf Splash to the resort industry is its impact on the ravages of sand. “I discovered that beach hotels spend thousands and thousands of dollars more on maintenance than inland hotels because of the damaging effects of sand on pools, carpets, vacuums cleaners, towels, sheets, etc.,” Jim explains. “It eats up everything it comes in contact with, which means it can destroy the vacuum cleaners as well as the carpet that’s being cleaned. Hotel guests transfer sand to sheets and towels, which drastically shortens their useful life, as well as the washing machines!”
“Everyone knows that sand is abrasive…. that’s why people use sandpaper and sandblasters! But until we did a little research, I did not realize just how rough and tough sand is. Sand is essentially silicon quartz. On the MOHS hardness scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being talc and 10 being a diamond, sand is a 7. It’s actually harder than cast iron, tooth enamel and a hardened steel file! It’s no wonder sand causes so much damage.” (See hardness chart for a comparison of other items to the hardness of sand.)
What started out as a convenience item has turned out to be a major money saver for resorts. Because guests enjoy using it and due to its efficiency, the Surf Splash has tremendously reduced the amount of sand tracked by guests onto pool decks and into pools, lobbies, elevators and rooms. Cheryl Faulk, Community Association Manager of the Calypso Resort and Towers in Panama City Beach, Florida tells this story, “We installed the Surf Splash on a Friday afternoon. Our pool attendant came in the following Monday not knowing it was there. She was shocked by the absence of sand in the pools! She thought people had not used the pools over the weekend. In just two days, the Surf Splash virtually eliminated sand in our pools.” Roger LaMarre, Building Manager at Beach Colony Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, raves about the Surf Splash’s sand stopping power. He calculated that the Surf Splash saved him $7,500.00 in one season by reducing labor for cleaning sand from his boardwalk, pool deck and outdoor showers and by allowing him to get another year out of the stain on his pool deck. This savings estimate does not even include the savings from increased longevity of indoor carpeting, vacuum cleaners, linens, etc.!
The Surf Splash also conserves water. This not only saves money but is important environmentally, particularly in drought stricken areas. The Surf Splash uses about one gallon of water to wash the sand from a person’s feet and lower legs compared to approximately 2.5 gallons of water required for a shower head and 4 gallons of water for a garden hose. So, it is as much as four times more efficient than what is currently used in the resort industry. In addition, the automatic shutoff feature of the Surf Splash may save as much water by preventing waste as it saves by its efficiency. When you think of the thousands of gallons saved in one season, replacing one garden hose for foot rinsing with a Surf Splash may be equivalent in water conservation to replacing all of a resort’s standard shower heads with low flow shower heads.
The Surf Splash is simple, durable and efficient. Jim designed it to be heavy duty, using powder coated stainless steel to protect it from the harsh elements of the beach environment. You step onto a platform to activate the unit, and five spray nozzles on each side, angled by computer design, remove the sand from the knees down. PVC-acrylic side panels (which can have a resort’s custom logo applied) keep the overspray from soaking bystanders. It operates from standard municipal water pressure (45-60 psi), and no electricity is required! The anti-skid, UV resistant platform is spring loaded so that the water automatically shuts off when you step off, and you never have to put your “stuff” down! In addition, it can be permanently installed to eliminate theft.
Nowadays, Jim spends his time showcasing his product to beach resorts all over the country. Eventually, he hopes to take his product world wide, and has based his international headquarters in Wildwood, Georgia. When he’s not at trade shows showing resort developers his invention, he and his staff are constantly monitoring the progress of units already installed at beach resorts. So far, the Surf Splash has lived up to its promises, as it continues to provide convenience and cost savings while enduring in the harshest of environments. Jim hopes that one day “Surf Splash” will be a household name much like “Coca-Cola.” Hopefully, you’ll think of him next time you’re walking off the beach… carrying all of your “stuff.”