Vinyl Cleaners

Knight's Marine Spray Nine works best—and it's quick and inexpensive. Products from Meguiar's and 303 Products were effective, too.

Our test group included 19 products from ûabout a dozen manufacturers. All are mark- ûeted for marine use. The pump spray bottles, ûespecially those with trigger grips, make ûthe job a bit easier.

Waldo Semon, a rubber scientist in the early 1920s, had been tinkering around in search of a formula that would yield a synthetic adhesive. He didn’t have much luck, but what he did manage to stumble upon was a new material with some pretty nifty properties. He called it polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, and he started experimenting by cobbling golf balls and shoe heels out of the material. From that humble beginning, PVC—commonly known as vinyl—has grown to become the world's most versatile plastic. Today vinyl is the second largest volume plastic produced in the world.…