Boating seat invention getting national buzz

KINSTON — Billy and Lee Taylor accepted the fact that many things would change when Nash, their son and first-born child, came into their lives during June 2007.

One change the Kinston couple refused to give up was their love for boating.

“Like a lot of Kinstonians, my wife and I go to the beach most weekends and boat – it is our favorite thing in the world to do,” Billy Taylor said. “But the following summer when we went out to Shackleford Banks, it turned out to be disastrous. After about an hour of Nash playing in the sun, he wanted to come in and we had to pack up the coolers and the dogs.”

To keep the baby safe and happy while keeping the couple’s hobby intact, Billy invented the Searock, a marine grade baby seat for boats and homes.

“It just came out of necessity,” Taylor said. “We tried umbrellas and a tent, but it just did not work and there is just no place to put a little one on a boat to relax.”

Taylor originally designed the product as a swing that hangs underneath the cover of the 23-foot boat and developed it using marine-grade plastic that withstands the salt and weather of the beach.

The baby seat hangs from the boat top using a four-point harness that attaches above the seat and an additional stabilizer below the seat to make for a natural rocking motion with the ocean, which Nash immediately took a liking to.

“When he gets tired, we just put him underneath the canopy and the waves make the seat rock, giving it the name Searock,” Taylor said. “He would rock himself to sleep for three or four hours and when he would wake up he would be recharged and play again – extending our day at sea from one to seven hours.”

The seat, which took a year to design and manufacture, is the first baby seat of its kind for a boat that features a tray to hold food, protects infants from the sun, and is transferrable from the boat to a home or dock.

The closest product similar is an infant carrier that is buoyant, which is patented.

The Searock is debuting this week at the New England Boat Show in Boston, Mass., the largest boat show in the Northeast.

It is being featured in Nautical Lifestyle magazine and is in the works of being contracted to a distributor and sold in Overton’s, a boating equipment catalog company.

“We have sold 30 seats in three days at the show,” Taylor said. “Our marketing strategy is to promote the product through mail order catalogs, sports shops and trade magazines.

Wesley Brown can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wbrown@freedomenc.com.

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Searock

Manufactured and assembled in Kinston.

Cost: $99.95 plus $15.00 shipping and handling and tax

To order: babysearock.com