Laundry
by Kate and Hamish Laird

• The Lairds' summer schedule includes Ireland, Scotland, and the Faroes, before heading off for South America in August. This week we asked them to write about how they get the laundry done on board.

While we were building SEAL, lots of people told me I needed to put a washing machine aboard. And there are moments when I wish I could fire the clothes into the machine, push a button and be done with it - but the arguments against a washing machine are still strong when I remember them, and ultimately, it is easier not to have one.

I looked into the details of the ubiquitous Splendide washer and pondered the GE Spacemaker and an apartment one from WalMart, thinking we might be able to tear out the guts and install them in locker on SEAL. We were still building the boat woodwork, so we had some options, and we even had a spot for it drawn out on the plans. Of course, that was a much better spot for the hot water heater than a washing machine, and I value hot showers way above an automatic washer, so we put the hot water heater there and were back to square one for the washer.

Where we cruise, drying is almost as much a problem as washing - but the units with a built-in drier either needed to be vented (and then we'd have the problem of closing the vent to keep the seas out) or use a condenser, which is not as effective, and uses a lot of water).

Once it's loaded with soap, clothes, and hot water, Helen spins the Wonderwash.

Even more water...washing machines, even the most efficient ones, use a tremendous amount of water. The smallest Splendide uses 20 gallons for a full load. We don't have a watermaker, and although we carry 400 gallons/1500 litres of water which seems like a luxurious quantity, it won't last long under 20 gallon assaults.

The other problem with our system is that we have and use the ability to turn the entire pressure side to salt water. This allows us to nurse our 1500 litres for months, and gives us salt water for washing up and long showers (we rinse at the end with a litre of fresh water). While we were in the Bahamas and Belize, we used this system a lot; in Greenland where there was a waterfall into every cove, we used fresh water the entire time. But we didn't want to risk a $1000 washing machine with the possibility of salt water in the plumbing. Would we install a separate water pump for the washing machine? (This was not an entirely mad idea as we carry a complete spare pump which could be plumbed in as well as sitting in a box in a locker).

Back when we were initially planning the boat, I imagined we would be setting sail with babes in diapers. (Instead, it took a year to design the boat and another three to finish the build, so we were spared that!) That would have meant daily washing, and even 1500 litres of water wasn't close to enough for a washing machine. We were sure that we didn't want a watermaker, as these require an extraordinary amount of maintenance, and in general do not perform well in the cold, krill-filled waters of the Antarctic. Hamish has worked on superyachts, where the watermaker (crucial to all the water use calculations) has been operating at 5% capacity, and the engineers had to work full time to keep the filters changed and the system functioning.

We started moving away from the idea of a washing machine. But surely, one can make handwashing better?

My mother-in-law lives in England, and she has a spinner. It has no heat, but spins at 3600 rpm, and when you pull a fleece (or a wool sweater, for that matter, though we don?t use wool on the boat) out of it, it is practically dry enough to wear. Hanging in the sun, or over our radiator, Hamish's heavyweight jeans are dry in about two hours after a session in the spinner. Since it goes twice as fast as a washing machine spin cycle, it really gets a headstart on the drying. In cold, wet climates, that's an extraordinary boon, but even in the tropics, it's the hanging on the line in the sun that destroys the clothes, and causes rust streaks on everything (from the lifelines and the clothes pegs).

I had never seen one of these spinners in the US, and wasn't sure they came in 120 VAC (and we had already decided on a 120 VAC main inverter system for the boat, and even bought the inverter, so I didn't want to have to install a big 240 VAC inverter just for the spinner.

They do: http://www.spin-x.com. They are not cheap. (Perhaps they are cheaper in Europe at 240 VAC since there is more competition.) They draw about 6 amps at 120 VAC - nothing compared to the drying job they do. Even a 1000-watt inverter should be able to handle that. The big load is for the initial start up, and after that, the amperage trickles off once the spin is established (and it only takes about two minutes to extract all the water).

Helen loads up the spinner with wet clothes.

They are big. Not for a small boat. (For a small boat, salad spinners do the same job, and take a lot of water out of fleece and cotton), and for a medium-sized boat, you can buy 5-gallon restaurant salad spinners that ought to work well too.

25" tall X 14" round (64cm X 36cm) - and they probably need to be in a place where you can take it out easily and move it into the galley or head for washing day. We built ours in so it could be used in situ, but I find I move it to the galley each time anyway, as then it's right next to the sink.

Kate looks at the water coming out of the spinner. The bucket of water was spun out of just one load of washing.

Okay, so that was drying sorted out. (Well that, and a Home Depot retractable clothes line that we pull out over the wet locker).

However you do it, please use wooden clothes pegs: when you hang clothes out on deck, you *will* lose clothes pegs. Wooden and metal ones are biodegradable. The plastic ones still leave rust on your clothes from the metal spring, and when they fly over the side, they will float for ages, and wash up on that beautiful tropical beach you were enjoying so much.

(One way to prevent this is not to bristle the pegs on top of the clothes as you do on land, but to catch the clothes underneath the lifeline or clothesline so that even if they spin around, there isn't much load on the pegs. Heavy towels stay on better if you have loops sewn onto the towels and secure them to the lifeline with a little carabiner - they will still need to be pegged, but you won't lose them when the wind comes up and blows the pegs away.)

What about the washing? I'd heard about a hand-operated pressure washer called WonderWash (http://www.laundry-alternative.com). A lot cheaper than a Splendide washer ($40 versus $1000), it was worth giving it a try.

It works. It is not as good as an automatic washer, but it does a better job than handwashing. I use the Wonderwash for washing and then rinse in the sink. It is quite unwieldy though, and takes a lot of space for spinning. We loathed it, because with the frame it took up quite a lot of space, and the suckers on the bottom of the frame were enough to make it hard to lift off the counter, but not sticky enough to keep it from sliding all over the stainless counter while in use.

Jason, who crewed for us last year, came back to give us a hand before we set out this spring . He was working on an entirely different project when he came up with a brainstorm to improve the Wonderwash. He built two plastic bearings so it would spin on our galley restraining bar, and threw away the frame with great pleasure.

So, after a year, we have a complete system that works. It is not as easy as a washing machine, but it is a lot cheaper, less complicated, and is a lot easier than handwashing and wringing or carrying the stuff to a launderette.

Done at last!

You can learn more about the Lairds and Seal at their website www.expeditionsail.com.