The present invention relates generally to a boat accessory rack and, more particularly, to an adjustable boat accessory rack that may be attached to a variety of different boats.
Since small boats are used to tow water skiers, a common problem for such boat owners is that there is not enough room within the boat hull for the water skiers and their accompanying ski accessories. To solve this problem many boat owners have added ski racks to store these accessies, i.e., water skis, wake boards, and similar accessories. Examples of such boat accessory racks can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,015 (the xe2x80x9c""015 Patent), U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,754 (the xe2x80x9c""754 Patent) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,979,350 (the xe2x80x9c""350 Patentxe2x80x9d).
While these known boat accessory racks work for their intended purpose, there are drawbacks in their designs. For example, because known boat accessory racks, such as the rack disclosed in the ""350 Patent, are constructed as a welded, generally unitary structures, boat accessory racks have to be custom designed for installation on particular boats. This often requires professional installation which is costly to the consumer. Furthermore, the large nature of these unitary structures eliminates the ability to ship boat accessory racks via common carrier, thus, further increasing the cost of such racks to consumers.
To overcome the disadvantages noted above, the present invention is directed to a universal boat accessory rack with a first support, a second support, a cross-bar connecting the first support to the second support, and a plurality of fasteners, which connect the first support and second support to a boat hull. More specifically, the first support, the second support and the cross-bar are all adjustable in length. Therefore, the boat accessory rack has an adjustable height, width and depth. In addition, the fasteners are capable of being attached in a vertical, horizontal or angular position with respect to the boat hull.
A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, properties and relationships of the invention will be obtained from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings which set forth an illustrative embodiment and which are indicative of the various ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed.