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June 30, 2006 - LAUNDRY ABOARD
by Al & Beth Liggett

In the days before Sunflower, we lived and worked in Guam - Al as a land surveyor and I as a teacher. We also owned a large laundromat - 60 washing machines and 27 dryers. And I always thought that when I won the lottery, I would spend the money to fund laundromats all over the world in places that cruising boats gathered. Alas, that lottery ticket has escaped me, and one must do the best one can with what is available, and unfortunately, that doesn't usually include Laundromats! In Malaysia and Thailand, our current stomping grounds, there aren't any Laundromats.

Al and Beth doing laundry.

Laundry is one of those "ugggh" chores on a boat. Maybe in a house too for that matter. But if you have a washing machine and copious water at hand it's a much simpler task.

Although many boats these days do have a washing machine aboard, Sunflower is not one of them. I suppose that those boats with washers must also have a watermaker to supply the water necessary for their use. Al HATES to carry water. I mean HATES!! So unless water is plentiful from either a watermaker, or from catching rain, or from being tied up in a marina, I can't see the value of committing the space and power required for a washing machine.

I have a laundry routine that works for me. When I have buckets and/or jugs full of water, I put a little soap powder into a bucket and fill it with water to the level I need. The laundry bucket for white clothes would get a dollop of bleach as well. In go the clothes. I swish them around a bit to incorporate the soap into the fabric, then leave them to soak overnight. The next day I do the actual washing - plunging and squeezing and scrubbing and agitating the clothes in anyway it is comfortable. Wring the clothes out as much as possible and you are ready for the rinsing.

Rinsing takes a LOT more water than washing. I start with the smallest or thinnest clothes, or those with the easiest type of fabric to rinse. They get swished around in a half bucket of water, one at a time, until the water seems to be too soapy. Dump it out. Continue in that mode, with more clean water, adding pieces when you feel the clothes have been rinsed thoroughly. And if you're lucky, you will have enough water for all the clothes you need to rinse. This takes some fine tuning to achieve.

Alternatively, I take the ready-to-rinse clothes to a water source ashore. Same drill with progressively rinsing the clothes until no soapy water remains. And if you have copious water, this goes quickly. Lucky me when there has been rain the night before wash day. Then the rain water in the dinghy serves as my rinse bucket. In Chagos, there are wells on some of the islands. Al usually dips the water up into the rinsing buckets for me. There have also been times and places where I can use a small stream or spring for my water gathering and rinsing.

Beth rinses the laundry.

Drying is an easier consideration. Just clothes pin (peg?) the clothes to the life lines or to a laundry line strung up somewhere convenient. I use the triangle from lower shroud to stays stay and back to shroud again. If it's windy, use a lot of pins; if it's really windy you are better off hanging clothes in the cockpit or some other protected place. And in the rainy season, timing is everything - otherwise your clothes get a second unplanned rinse, or a third and fourth, until you are wondering if they will go sour or moldy before they are dry!

I don't like to iron (although I do have one). So I am very careful about how I hang clothes up, buttoning buttons and smoothing fabrics, and putting the pins where they won't leave big marks on the clothes. This pays off, giving me almost a permapress drying cycle from the wind. It also helps to choose clothes with fabrics that are wrinkle resistant in the first place.

There are clothes that I really hate to have to deal with in buckets - towels for one, sheets, jeans, heavy shorts, sweat shirts, that sort of thing. In that case I treat myself to an onshore laundry. There are plenty in Malaysia, Thailand, where we cruise. It does mean lugging all the dirty stuff ashore and hauling it to the laundry, and - hopefully without rain or too much wave splashing - back to the boat again. It costs about US $.55/kilo, a little more if you have things ironed. But it beats hauling water! And I figure Al's back is worth FAR more that that!

I have learned to ask a lot of questions when you need to use the services of a laundry, especially the price. I remember a time when my friend Sandy and I asked a woman ashore where we could go to get some laundry done. "No problem," says she, "I'll have my maids do it for you." We got it back on the appointed day, all clean, dry, and ironed. But it cost us MORE than if we had gone out and bought new sheets and towels!

But my favorite all-time laundry story: Ben and his family sailed into a small island in the Caroline Islands. Lots of wet and salty clothes from a rugged trip had piled up aboard. Ben asked a local where he could get this laundry done, and trudged off through the jungle paths with his bag of stuff. Arrangements were made - he thought. Ben came back on the appointed day to retrieve his laundry. Instead, the lady handed him $6.25. "What's this for?" Ben asks. "Oh, good clothes, much money," the lady answers. She had SOLD his clothes instead of washing them!