For Brooklyn, New York resident Dawn Adams, a windy day in Bermuda was the inspiration for a new invention — a specially designed peg to hold down your beach towel.

She called the item Blanchor 2.0, a combination of the words “blanket” and “anchor”.

“My mother and I went to Horseshoe Bay and took a sheet from our hotel room to sit on,” said Ms Adams, a frequent visitor to the island.

The sheet kept blowing everywhere.

“There was sand all over us,” Ms Adams said. “It wasn’t fun. My mother sat on one side and I sat on the other to hold it down.”

When they returned to New York, she looked around for a solution for her next beach excursion.

“I found a few different things, but they were mostly stakes that were pointed at the bottom which were not really helpful in sand,” Ms Adams said.

A co-worker sketched out her first prototype, a corkscrew with a clip on top that attached to the towel or blanket. By March 2012 she had a sample in hand.

On her next trip to Bermuda she showed her product to an entrepreneur at Horseshoe Bay.

“I went in with my New York hustle,” she said. “I said ‘you need this’.”

His interest piqued when she suggested she put his logo on top of the clip.

“He said ‘now that, I would buy’,” she said.

She borrowed money from friends and family, and got as far as creating a mould for the pegs. Then things stalled.

Looking back she said she was learning too much and trying to do too much at the same time.

She spent the next ten years paying back all the friends and family who had lent her money to build the Blanchor.

“I felt like a failure and down on myself,” she said. “I let the Blanchor go for years and years.”

Last year, she had an unexpected offer to invest in her idea. Initially, she turned it down.

“I had a lot of false starts and false hope over the years,” she said. “Then in April, I had a bit of a midlife crisis. I’m 56. I looked at my 401k. It was doing OK, so I took a chunk out of that, and this time I funded everything myself. My mother helped me.”

Her earlier attempts to launch the business turned out to be learning experiences. Her first mould cost $35,000. The new one cost $12,000.

The updated version of the Blanchor was a larger, more ergonomic top that fit in the palm of the hand when twisted into the sand. She also wanted the product to bring more individuality to beach gear.

The pegs clip onto the blanket, so they can hang at its sides when it is lifted. Ms Adams is focused on beachfront use and is exploring how to introduce Blanchor to customers, including through online sales and potential retail opportunities in Bermuda. She has also discussed creating designs inspired by Bermuda.

“I’m just juggling my launches and figuring it out, which is fun,” she said.

Each Blankit includes four Blanchor beach blanket pegs and one coordinating 60-by-80-inch microfibre beach blanket.

Because Bermuda was the inspiration for the product, she is looking at ways to make the island the first place the Blanchor 2.0 is available for sale.

She is looking at partnering with large tourism-oriented businesses such as cruise ship companies and souvenir shops.

“I would love to come down and set it up in stores down there,” she said. “I could set up a pop-up store in Bermuda. It would be great to get some feedback on the product.”

• For more information, seetheblanchor.com