Laundry Aboard — Fit2Sail

I’ll start by saying this is likely my least favorite chore aboard. Actually, forget the waffling. I DETEST doing laundry by hand.

Now that that’s out of the way, here we go.

When we first went cruising, in the early 1990s, when our budget was minuscule, paying even for a laundromat was out of the question. Bucket life, baby, is where it was at. T-shirts, underwear. Sheets, towels, jeans, sweatshirts - all of it. Capture water, or jerry jug it, or find it in a cistern somewhere, then spend hours soaking and sudsing and wringing it all out. Bone stiff jeans and towels, dingy sheets. We took the “cruiser wardrobe” to some extremes, let me tell you. My hands still ache.

When we decided we were going to keep cruising on Calypso, one of my requirements was that we’d “splurge” for laundromats wherever possible. There are a LOT of laundromats to be visited before you come close to approaching the cost of a larger boat! We flirted with the idea of adding a wringer to Calypso (not practical from a space or a cost angle); I’ve followed threads on small washing machines with great interest, but we keep coming back to “no space.” Fine. Laundromats it is. Even if it was $8 a load, drying included. Especially since we were cruising with the kids, so the laundry load (as it were) was doubled. Every now and then we’d do a small load in a bucket, underwear mostly, but laundromats were a way of life.

Note: I realize that it’s both economically and ecologically better to dry on a line. I opt for the ease of “it’s all done in one fell swoop” and dry in a machine when I can - no lugging wet clothing back and hanging it on not-enough-space, then scrambling to take it down when the rain comes, then putting it back up, then taking it all down, and putting it back up - repeat ad nauseum.

I’m fine with laundromats. I like the social aspect of them, chatting with other people also working to keep clothing at least semi-clean. We’ve heard some great stories from the proprietors. There’s something very satisfying about lugging a Santa sack of dirty stuff and a few hours later lugging a clean sack back to the boat.

We’re in French Polynesia now, and at least so far a laundromat is not a thing. We’ve come across a couple of places where you can drop your stuff off; it ranges in price from $10- $20 a 8 kg washing machine load (drying not included). Might take a day. Or two. Or three. Might be a 30 minute walk uphill to find the spot. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a good sense of how much actually fits in an 8 kg machine. Plus, then we need to schlep WET laundry back to the boat to hang it up to dry. Yay. (Sarcasm)

Back to buckets we go.

(We did decide to have the sheets washed ashore in Tahuata. Chez Jimmy, one of the restaurants in Vaitahu, also offers a laundry service. $10 for a load (wash only). We handed off the 3 sets of sheets (plus 2 towels) from our passage and were very happy to pay the $20, even though we needed to bring back the wet sheets and dry them aboard. Sheets are a major MAJOR pain in a bucket. When the opportunity presents itself, we’ll still do sheets this way.)

Method:

Collect rain water in buckets. (Or have buckets filled from the water maker. Or from water brought aboard in jerry jugs.)
Add detergent to one bucket. Slosh it around to dissolve. Add clothing. (If the clothing is REALLY dirty, let it soak overnight) Using a clean plunger (yes, a toilet plunger. NOT one used for toilet duty.) and plunge away. I set a 5 minute timer. Let it sit for 20 minutes or so. Plunge again.
Wring out each piece of clothing as you remove it from the bucket.
Empty said bucket.
Add in clean water.
Add clothing back in (shake each piece out so it’s not all wadded up.). Plunge for another 2-3 minutes.
Repeat the rinse cycle if needed.
Wring out the clothes as best you can - wrapping around the lifelines and wringing hard is very effective.
Hang up to dry.

I’m not sure if it’s that I’ve gotten older and things are less frustrating than they were, or we’re wearing less bulky clothes, or what, but I have to say the few loads I’ve done in a bucket have not been as heinous as I remember. Sending the sheets to be done in a machine definitely helps.

Still need to keep an eye on the sky for weather; if it’s an endless cycle of rain/no rain/rain every 20 minutes, that’s not the best day to choose to do laundry!