For example – you might keep one at hand in your car or garage to mount on the roof of your shiny car. With a 6 foot span, the Gullsweep rotates in even the lightest breeze and will prevent the birds from landing there.

Gullsweep has been used to prevent birds from landing on and messing greenhouses and glasshouses, and to protect covered swimming pools, conservatories and other outbuildings and house extensions with glass roofs.

Golf courses, bowling greens and putting greens are a popular place for birds to flock and make a mess. With a few Gullsweeps they are persuaded to land elsewhere because the Gullsweep operates like a predatory bird, invading their space with the moving arms and making them feel uncomfortable.

Gullsweep is sometimes used in the garden to keep birds off important plants which they might otherwise harm. Seedlings, display flowers, soft fruits and other bird edibles are protected by the Gullsweep rotating where they might otherwise land and damage your precious greenery.

The main use for Gullsweep is in protecting your boat. They work particularly well at this as there is pretty much always at least a light brezze on the water. If you have a fair size boat – several Gullsweeps can be used together to protect all parts of the boat from gulls and other seabirds messing the decks and cabin roof.

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Birds love to settle on high-up places like signs where they are safe from prowling land predators like cats and they have a good view. Bird mess all over a sign is pretty offputting for whatever the sign is promoting and some people use Gullsweep to protect their signage and keep it clean.

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The operational efficiency of solar panels takes a dive if even the smallest area is shadowed, and that includes patches of bird mess. You can keep your panels operating at peak efficiency by installing a gullsweep that stops the birds landing there to start with.

Once the sun and salt has completed the chemical process it seems to harden into a resin that only the most energetic actions or those involving chemicals can remove. After even just 2 or 3 weeks the boat becomes a stinking mess and a full days work to clean up. Sometimes it appears your boat will be singled out for carpet bombing over a shorter period of time as flocks of gulls choose it as their preferred meeting place or for target practice.

As someone who has worked in a boatyard cleaning bird mess from boats, I can certainly vouch to the severity of this problem. Bird guano is extremely acidic and very hard to remove once it has repeatedly dried in sunlight and wetted in seasalt. It is even harder to remove from covers than it is from wood or fibreglass as it discolours all types of covering fabric. A high-pressure hose is essential for a first clean and it is a bit more effective if you leave the bird mess to soak in warm water and cleaning solutions for a while first. If you have a steam cleaner this helps but be careful not to crack bits of the boat with heat.

After that it is a hard scrub with a soapy scrubbing brush and some proprietary boat cleaning products (unless you use ‘Chine Shine’ GRP cleaner, available from, you guessed it – OSM Boats). You may need a pack of plastic pan scourers too. If these don’t cut through the mess you might need to sand, chemically strip or wire-wool back to the surface.

Once you have got your boat clean, invest in a Gullsweep® Bird scarer to prevent the mess and keep the critters off your boat. Here is a picture of it in operation. It is called Gullsweep® and it is available by mail order from Outboard Services Ltd.

Over the years people have tried and tested many ways of keeping seagulls, pelicans, herons, cormorants, starlings, Canadian geese, ducks and other birds off their boats.

Seagull spikes, seagull netting, seagull post and wire and all sort of seagull scarers have been tried.

Boat owners have applied their dogs, cats and even rifles to the problem of seagulls messing on their boats. They have spent many hours tying flapping tape and sparkly ribbons to rigging.

People have suspended predatory bird replicas from the mainmast to swing in the breeze, installed expensive audio scarer systems that supposedly only seagulls can hear and fought over the mooring nearest to the osprey nest. They have spent untold time entombing their boat in webs of fishing wire only to find it is then, although reasonably free of guano, entirely inoperable. If ‘bird brains’ are so tiny, why is it that us humans have so much trouble keeping seagulls off our boats?

Leaving the mainsheet loose and letting the boom swing back and forth can help a little but leaves the boat in an unsafe state. And what if you have no sail? Static displays such as snakes, inflatable owls, stuffed ospreys even feather dusters with sewn on eyes, dangling CDs and other things just seem to attract the birds’ attention even more. Its no wonder that the screeching sound a gull makes sometimes appears just a little too much like laughter.

The solution to the problem of birds messing your boat is much easier than you might suspect. Here is a picture of it in operation. It is called Gullsweep® and it is available by mail order from Outboard Services and Marine Ltd.

Flapping tape or ribbons, sparkling CDs and DVDs soon become ignored by the birds because they just choose a roost away from the flapping.

The primary objective of the Gullsweep® is to make gulls uncomfortable so they will select another roosting sight. Here is a picture of one in operation.

Gullsweep® has a 180 centimetre diameter of movement, giving a sweep that covers a perimeter of nearly 6 metres. The movement of Gullsweep® is far more effective than that of flapping objects because the vanes encroach on the birds’ space, behaving like a predator and forcing it to move elsewhere. One or more Gullsweeps® can clear your boat of birds.

If a gull has been roosting on your boat, it is most important to clean up the bird mess promptly. Existing bird mess encourages other birds to roost there as it is a strong indication that the location is a safe one. Gullsweeps® are not expensive and can be easily mounted, dismounted and stored quickly when boating so that using several on a boat is very realistic and more effective.

If Seagulls are your problem, we have the solution. Just about all the boats in our marina have Gullsweep® fitted and guess what, they are clean and seagull free. Each Gullsweep® comes complete with all the necessary parts to install it on any boat. Optional installation pads, a storage pouch, longer mounting pins and two sizes of G clamp are also available to make life easier. Keep Seagulls off your boat with Gullsweep®.

Gullsweep® bird deterrent is available by mail order from Outboard Services Ltd.