NornaBiron
New member
Marina? What's one of them?! We run our machine off the generator whilst it is heating the water (20 minutes) and then we switch to the inverter, works a treat and we can stay at anchor when we're doing the laundry.
How useful is a washing machine if you liveaboard?
- Thread starter FurryWritingDesk
- Start date
Marina? What's one of them?! We run our machine off the generator whilst it is heating the water (20 minutes) and then we switch to the inverter, works a treat and we can stay at anchor when we're doing the laundry.
Frankie-H
New member
What a chauvinistic post. This is the liveaboard forum. 'Real men' with real boats need a real wife or partner for company and not just for washing. I am sure that there are many 'real men', who actually share the washing duties. Liveaboards do not just go our to thrash around the buoys on a Saturday and most of us do not regard our home as anything but shared.
charles_reed
Active member
What a chauvinistic post. This is the liveaboard forum. 'Real men' with real boats need a real wife or partner for company and not just for washing. I am sure that there are many 'real men', who actually share the washing duties. Liveaboards do not just go our to thrash around the buoys on a Saturday and most of us do not regard our home as anything but shared.
Yeah - he has a point, women = x2 the water usage of men. Don't ask me why, but that's the unfortunate fact that's come out of 14 years of recording water usage aboard.
ukmctc
New member
great to have a washing machine, we have a portable twin tub, easy stowed, easy use, simple. best £50 I ever spent.
Yacht Mollymawk
New member
I'm amazed at the number of people replying to this post who have washing machines aboard! I've been cruising for 25 years and have come across just three or four electric ones in all that time; and only one of these was in regular use.
I guess it probably depends largely on whether you're cruising or hanging-out in one place, and on whether you're at anchor or alongside.
We're almost never alongside, so we never have access to shore power. Our electricity all comes from the wind and the sun - for me, and for most long-term liveaboard cruisers, this is part of the ethic; we are independent of "the grid" and we don't use fossil fuel unless we have to - so finding the electricity to run the thing would be a big deal.
And then there's the water. As you say at the outset, if you have a watermaker then you can always produce water - but only at the financial, environmental, and noise expense of running an engine or a generator.
We have a Survivor 12v watermaker, but it uses so much power, and is so slow that we keep it strictly for emergency use. (It takes 5 hours to produce our daily need, for 4 and a dog, of 25 litres; and throughout this time it sounds like a super-noisy lorry's windscreen wipers: "HEE-HA, HEEE-HA, HEE-HA...")
Most watermakers are run from the engine or from a generator. I'm not sure where you are, but if you are blue-water cruising you will soon find that continually running your engine or a generator in a serene tropical anchorage is considered very anti-social...
As for those neat little hand-driven tubs - you can often pick them up very cheaply, because after the novelty has worn off most people find that hand-washing was better. (Being utterly watertight they make very good grab-boxes, to be filled with food and fishing tackle and left on deck alongside the raft.)
As someone has mentioned, the tumbling is not crucial; the machines work by pressure. The pressure is achieved by making the water very, very hot - so it's not the place to be washing undies, or anything else with elastic in it. Furthermore, after you've done the washing you still have to rinse, wring, and hang the stuff out on the line, and this is actually the major part of the laundry business.
This bad news is brought to you by one who detests hand-washing the clothes more than anything else I can think of. But I've been doing it for 25 years, and I haven't come across an easier, more workable method - other than occasional recourse to a laundrette or (in the third-world) a washer-woman.
My method is simple (hot water from a jerry in the sun, or from the stove; two large tubs, one for the wash and one for the rinse) but it depends upon one very important principal which has been ingrained into the children from their earliest years: WEAR LESS.
From the realio-trulio naked chef - and the naked skipper, and the other half-naked savages - aboard the good ship Mollymawk
Jill
I guess it probably depends largely on whether you're cruising or hanging-out in one place, and on whether you're at anchor or alongside.
We're almost never alongside, so we never have access to shore power. Our electricity all comes from the wind and the sun - for me, and for most long-term liveaboard cruisers, this is part of the ethic; we are independent of "the grid" and we don't use fossil fuel unless we have to - so finding the electricity to run the thing would be a big deal.
And then there's the water. As you say at the outset, if you have a watermaker then you can always produce water - but only at the financial, environmental, and noise expense of running an engine or a generator.
We have a Survivor 12v watermaker, but it uses so much power, and is so slow that we keep it strictly for emergency use. (It takes 5 hours to produce our daily need, for 4 and a dog, of 25 litres; and throughout this time it sounds like a super-noisy lorry's windscreen wipers: "HEE-HA, HEEE-HA, HEE-HA...")
Most watermakers are run from the engine or from a generator. I'm not sure where you are, but if you are blue-water cruising you will soon find that continually running your engine or a generator in a serene tropical anchorage is considered very anti-social...
As for those neat little hand-driven tubs - you can often pick them up very cheaply, because after the novelty has worn off most people find that hand-washing was better. (Being utterly watertight they make very good grab-boxes, to be filled with food and fishing tackle and left on deck alongside the raft.)
As someone has mentioned, the tumbling is not crucial; the machines work by pressure. The pressure is achieved by making the water very, very hot - so it's not the place to be washing undies, or anything else with elastic in it. Furthermore, after you've done the washing you still have to rinse, wring, and hang the stuff out on the line, and this is actually the major part of the laundry business.
This bad news is brought to you by one who detests hand-washing the clothes more than anything else I can think of. But I've been doing it for 25 years, and I haven't come across an easier, more workable method - other than occasional recourse to a laundrette or (in the third-world) a washer-woman.
My method is simple (hot water from a jerry in the sun, or from the stove; two large tubs, one for the wash and one for the rinse) but it depends upon one very important principal which has been ingrained into the children from their earliest years: WEAR LESS.
From the realio-trulio naked chef - and the naked skipper, and the other half-naked savages - aboard the good ship Mollymawk
Jill
scoty
New member
JATA,
they make an electric machine thats portable , big enough for full size sheets one at a time, price 100 euros
they make an electric machine thats portable , big enough for full size sheets one at a time, price 100 euros
damsis44
Member
We are three (2 adults + 6yo boy) living aboard our Prout 37 cat, and we (royal 'we') wouldn't be without our washing machine. It's this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-Wa...1390347013&sr=8-1&keywords=good+ideas+washing
and it's probably paid for itself already. It fits perfectly in the port fwd cupboard in front of the heads, I lift it out, plug it in, hang the waste hose over the sink in the heads and use the shower tap to fill it. It will take a double duvet cover or jeans (I know, I know, but we're still in the UK) in both the wash and the spin, and will spin to nearly dry in about 3 mins. It's very low power usage, and will run off the inverter if required. If water is an issue, one can be quite frugal with this machine and control both wash and rinse water.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-Wa...1390347013&sr=8-1&keywords=good+ideas+washing
and it's probably paid for itself already. It fits perfectly in the port fwd cupboard in front of the heads, I lift it out, plug it in, hang the waste hose over the sink in the heads and use the shower tap to fill it. It will take a double duvet cover or jeans (I know, I know, but we're still in the UK) in both the wash and the spin, and will spin to nearly dry in about 3 mins. It's very low power usage, and will run off the inverter if required. If water is an issue, one can be quite frugal with this machine and control both wash and rinse water.
FurryWritingDesk
New member
Thank you to everyone! I really like the look of the suggestion by Damis44 - and I suspect Mr FWD will also for reasons of space etc. This weekend will be spent with a tapemeasure...
Cardo
Active member
Damis44's unit is essentially the same as ours, but also has the spinner. I would recommend getting one with a spinner if you have the space for it. We only have the "washing" side of it, but even then it's a massive improvement on not having one at all.
sailaboutvic
Well-known member
We keep ours next to the dry which is next to our top load freezer that's sits next to our wood burner joking guys ,
what a washing machine any way ????
what a washing machine any way ????
Gerry
Well-known member
Couldn't agree more, after 15 years living aboard I have never felt the need for a washing machine on board. On the rare occasions when the laundry is too expensive we wash by hand, no great hardship.
Amazed that so many need a machine!
theguerns
New member
we live aboard full time and have found that doing the washing at the local laundret cost about 2000 euros a year so bought a washing machine. Please look (theguerns.blogspot.com) and a spin dryer. people ask us how we fit it on our boat (ColvicWatson 32) but it has its own little place up forward.
Artic Warrior
Member
chrisb
New member
We had one of the small French plastic ones . Not expensive and not a bad wash .We also have a 60litare/hour watermaker. I sold the washing machine because it too k2 hrs of watermaking to provide the rinsing water for the wash .We now use the local laundry/ladies who tend to charge 4-6 gbp equiv for a 6kg load washed dried and folded in the parts of the world where we sail