Laundry

[Andrew_B]

A quick question for all you liveaboards from SHMBO.
I have experimented with several ways to do the laundry without wasting precious fresh water {we have no watermaker}, one of which was disasterous -using seawater resulted in all our clothes being unwearable.
The main problem I encounter is the rinse water as I am always mean with this.Has anyone any ideas about this? I think an old-fashioned mangel would be a good idea but where to find a small one is difficult.

 

[MedMan]

We have purchased a stainless steel hand washing 'dolly' from Lakeland Plastics. It is just amazing. It resembles a perferated cone about 15cm diameter on the end of a rod with a handle at the other end. It is used to agitate the washing in a bucket and does so very well.

We tend to save our washing until we have got access to a tap so rinse water is not a problem. We have a friend who uses 4 buckets for rinsing. Each is filled half full of water to start with. The washing is rinsed first in bucket A, then B, then C and finally in D. A gets the most soap and, in due course is discarded, re-filled and moved to the far end so that B becomes the first rinse bucket. We have never tried the method as we use our tall rubish bin with our Lakeland Dolly as it works better with greater depth. It sounds good in principle though.

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[ccscott49]

I tend to save up my main washing, until a laundrette is available. Smalls etc, can be hand washed in fresh water and rinsed, using the minimum of soap. If you are serious liveaboards, I would tend to increase my water capacity. Theres always somewhere onboard an extra flexible tank will fit, easy enough to pipe in, with flexible pipe if ness. Heating water for washing, (saves soap) use a solar shower.

 

[Boatman]

There are also special salt water soaps which do work and make a huge difference.

 

[ccscott49]

You still need to rinse in fresh, or the clothes will never dry. Tried the salt water soaps, I just increased my water capacity and now have fitted a water maker! That's due to having a girlfriend with two daughters in their twenties with long hair all three!!!

 

[Gerry]

yes we've got one of these too and it works really well- helps get the rinse water right through the fabric with far less effort, and water!

 

[AndrewB]

Watermaker

I go with your salt water wash with sea-soap followed by a fresh water rinse. We catch rain water, tends to collect slightly salty for drinking, but fine for cooking and washing. The (sailing) world is divided into two parts (1) cold and wet = no shortage of fresh water; (2) hot and dry = wear hardly anything. So, no problem wherever you are!

I carry 100 galls of fresh but with rain water we use on average only 1½ galls per day from the tanks.

I thought of fitting a watermaker to replace one tank, to give us a bit extra room. But all the units I've seen at LIBS are expensive, hugely over-capacity (in view of our needs), far too bulky so would result in little net space saved, have big power requirements, need extra holes in the hull, seem to need lots of expensive spares (filters), look fragile and prone to go wrong. So I've decided against. An emergency hand unit might be an idea though.

 

[castlevar]

Re: Watermaker

Hi All
Having a 13 mtr motor boat which I built my wife insisted that we fit a washing m/c on previous boats we used one of the manual washing m/c.
This was very good but required a lot buckets of water etc now with the electric washing m/c our lives has totally changed we just fill the m/c with clothes turn it on return in an hour empty m/c hang up clothes and thats it.
We use the m/c when we are in a marina to give us access to water and electricity but not allways as we have a generator/invertor/solar panels and 1000ltrs water
regards Geoff

geoff

 

[Guest]

Two suggestions

When water was difficult to jerry jug, I would use two 5-gallon buckets, one full of rinse water, other empty. I would dampen first (small) item of clothing, put a little bit of detergent on it, scrub. Rinse by dipping in the fresh water, wring it into the empty bucket. A couple dips and it was rinsed. Second item of clothing, into the soapy water, dip and rinse the same way as first. Work down the pile of clothes until the wash bucket is about half full, then you can pile clothes into it, agitate with anything, best I've found was a toilet plunger. Wring each item very, very well (using stantions to really get leverage is one trick. And there are mangles available - here's a web site for one: http://www.survivalunlimited.com/clothewringer.htm

second idea, if your boat is large enough, is a washing machine with a separate spin compartment. They come in all plastic, some even are so simple that they don't have a pump, they just empty with gravity. the advantage here is that the spinner is so good that it takes very, very little water to rinse, and when spun dry, the clothes dry on the lifelines in 1/3 to 1/2 the time of manually wrung clothes (unless you use the mangle). They're relatively inexpensive, mostly plastic, and really great if you are in colder areas where long pants and sweatshirts, etc. are worn.

 

[sailmithril]

i agree washing is the easy bit - big bucket and good powder, bit of a stick to agitate it - but good rinsing is harder. we have an old fashioned spin dryer circa 1970 which operates on our 400 watt invertor and over the last 11 years it has become our most valued piece of kit. you use a lot less water which can be recycled through the whole load and by sticking a bit of fabric softener in the final rinse and spin your clothes aren't as hard and they smell yummy. you might still find a spin dryer in a jumble or car boot sale.