IBEX 365 News
2023 IBEX Innovation Award Interview with Roswell Marine
Auto-Rolling Fabric System
Children of the ‘80s surely remember when Slap Wrap bracelets swept the nation. Nine-inch strips of convex stainless steel under colorful covers of silicone or cloth, they instantly rolled around any wrist they slapped. For a season, they were the hot fashion ticket.
Roswell Marine, known best for its wakeboat towers and the thundering tunes wakeboarders love to surf to, brought a stowaway cockpit-shade system to IBEX 2023 that evoked the Slap Wrap bracelet and delighted Innovation Award judges with its surprising simplicity. The company’s Auto-Rolling Fabric System cracks two nuts at once: providing an open sunny cockpit, when that’s what the gang wants, and ample shade and shelter when that’s what they need. And it does so without the awkward four-handed Twister game of rolling and snapping by hand, or the structure and weight of rigid telescoping poles.
What problem was Roswell’s Auto-Rolling Fabric System designed to solve?
The system provides convertible sun coverage at the helm with an easy-to-use method of storing and containing fabric in any configuration.
Who is the target market for the Auto-Rolling Fabric System?
Any boat manufacturer utilizing non-permanent fabric coverings or barriers. Applications can be found in any boating segment including towboats, offshore boats, sailboats, day cruisers, and beyond.
Who is currently using the Auto-Rolling Fabric System? What feedback have you received?
Moomba Boats and Centurion boats. Feedback has been great. Customers like that it gives them coverage options with a fast easy-to-use system that requires no tools.
What obstacles arose during the R&D process?
The biggest obstacle was finding the right combination of material and thickness to achieve the goldilocks zone of auto-roll feel. The next challenge was finding a way to make the auto-roll tensioning bands easy to assemble in production and replace in the field.
What is the place for the Auto-Rolling System in Roswell’s product lineup?
The Auto-Rolling Fabric System provides our OEM customers with custom, innovative coverage solutions to pair with our award-winning tower programs. This product can be adapted to applications including, but not limited to bimini canvas, eisenglass, covers and more.
What impact do you see the system having on the boating building industry?
Its unique function changes the way we look at canvas, dodgers, boat covers, mooring covers and beyond. It opens new ways to look at how fabric, (typically loose and difficult to control) can now be controlled.
What plans are in place for the future of this system?
More applications and versions of the current functionality are already in the design process. More derivatives of this will open the technology up to solve more technical challenges and add value for boat manufacturers.
