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Old 12-08-2010, 06:06   #1
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pirate Double Duty Products and Gadgets You Couldn't Live Without

In the same vein as Windtraveler's post, as my Husband and I prepare to go cruising I keep kicking around in my brain what products do double duty onboard a boat so that we can save precious storage space. As well, what small products will make life easier and more enjoyable, or even safer.

Have you liveaboards and cruisers found certain products, clothing, personal care items that have made your life aboard that much easier and streamlined? and that are environmentally friendly?

So far, a few I am thinking of, with their purposes are:

1) Baking Soda - It can be used in cooking, cleaning (teak too), can be used as shampoo...

2) Castile Soap - Environmentally friendly soap, can be used to clean boat and body and hair.

3) Essential Oils - Tea Tree Oil for instance can be used as an antiseptic for cuts, scrapes and other first aid applications, can be added to Castile Soap for a disinfecting body soap or general cleaner onboard. Other essential oils can be used for numerous health applications and aromatherapy for general wellbeing. Can be added to personal care products like oils to moisturize skin. I hope to create a first aid kit of just essential oils and homeopathic remedies.

4) Reconstituted Lemon Juice - Can use to clean the beard off the hull I have been told, can be in other cleaning applications, and cook with and mix drinks with.

5) Five Fingers Shoes - although I have not tried them yet, and they are not cheap, these shoes appear as if they would be great shoes on the decks whether cruising or racing, you can run in them, walk in them, kayak in them, and they dry fast and seem to be able to be cleaned easily.

6) Just purchased some of those little neck scarfs that you soak in water for 8 hours and then tie around your neck for cooling down the body via the cartoid artery.

7) Salt - Cooking, Cleaning, mix with lotion/oils for body scrub...

So just some of my list I am getting together...Hope some of your veterans will share some your ideas of essential, ecofriendly products!
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Old 12-08-2010, 06:23   #2
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The little camping headlamps are pretty versatile. You can use the to read by in the berth, while working on the engine (any small place for that matter) and on deck at night when both hands are needed.
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Old 12-08-2010, 06:45   #3
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Vinegar -a hundred and one uses.
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Old 12-08-2010, 07:00   #4
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Zip (Cable) Ties of all sizes

Nylon ratchet straps

Plastic shopping bags>> these are the handiest! use for trash bags, plugging hull or hose leaks, laundry, use as a glove; pick up the yucky then fold over... the list goes on!
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Old 12-08-2010, 07:00   #5
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Good Ones! Thanks!

I used vinegar and baking soda to brighten our teak and it worked really well!
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Old 12-08-2010, 10:48   #6
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We look at it another way: Don't buy anything that has only one use!

Also check what you haven't used in the last few months and chuck it overboard.

Anything thats getting too old to be wanted to be used should be replaced (baking dishes etc dont last long being washed in salt water).

Re-use, double use and discard...
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Old 12-08-2010, 10:55   #7
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4) Reconstituted Lemon Juice - Can use to clean the beard off the hull I have been told, can be in other cleaning applications, and cook with and mix drinks with.
Removes the tarnish from your fine silverware w/o abrasives.

Don't forget the Duct Tape!
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Old 12-08-2010, 12:03   #8
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We look at it another way: Don't buy anything that has only one use!

Also check what you haven't used in the last few months and chuck it overboard.
Except for safety gear, of course.
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Old 12-08-2010, 13:47   #9
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dawn concentrate, works in bilge,(breaks down any oil), dishes, hands, and is enviromentally friendly. It is what they use to clean the birds after being in oil. And zip lock bags, great for collecting shells and stuff, storage of small parts, and food storage, basically dry storage!! And like Rick said vinegar. ALso aloe plant or ointment. If you keep it in fridge it REALLY feels good on burns, rashes, and they say you can drink it for gastro problems, (the gel from the plant)
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Old 12-08-2010, 13:59   #10
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5) Five Fingers Shoes - although I have not tried them yet, and they are not cheap, these shoes appear as if they would be great shoes on the decks whether cruising or racing, you can run in them, walk in them, kayak in them, and they dry fast and seem to be able to be cleaned easily.

6) Just purchased some of those little neck scarfs that you soak in water for 8 hours and then tie around your neck for cooling down the body via the cartoid artery.
The Spouse has a pair of the Vibrum toe shoes
and loves them and has liked them aboard.

I have 5 of the cooling neck wraps and wouldn't be caught on a hot day with out them. In Panama I pretty much lived with one around my neck since we did not have air conditioning. You can make them. The filling is a few T of the silica gel that you can buy at the garden shop for adding to potted plant soil to increase the water retention. I just cut up lengths of cotton bandana/calico material sew it, turn the tube, and stitch across so that the filler stays in the area around the neck, not in the ends that you tie. And I have found they plump up in 10 minutes... not hours!

I use flexible chopping mats in the galley.

They go on any surface I want to protect. I use them as serving tray liners so the wooden trays don't get grotty when I serve cheese or fruit on em, I keep one on the galley counter so the toast crumbs etc are easy to clean up. They are thin so they take up much less room than a cutting board. The flexibility makes moving stuff from the mat easy, they funnel up into the bowl or garbage and stuff slides off. When working with solvents cleaning stuff one of these down limits the spread of spills.
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Old 12-08-2010, 17:34   #11
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Two things come to mind:

1. Rescue Tape. This is magical stuff. It is non-stick silicon tape that binds to itself when stretched around an object. It hold to something like 900 PSI, 500 deg F, and thousands of volts. It'll create a water-tight seal to finish any electronics (I never use sticky, awful electrical tape any longer). It'll fix a leaking exhaust hose or water hose in an emergency. It'll finish off the end of cut line. Thousands of uses.

2. Orange GoJo hand cleaner. You've seen it - the stuff used by mechanics to clean their hands. It's got to be the orange version. The other versions don't have some of the same properties. OK, it's obviously a hand cleaner. But it's properties as a hand cleaner lend it to so many other uses. There is nothing better to clean a hypalon or PVC dinghy (http://takingpaws.blogspot.com/2010/...isfaction.html). The slight grit in the soap is often the perfect thing to clean something that needs a little more than plain soap. And because it's not a "boating" product, it's dirt cheap.
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Old 12-08-2010, 17:57   #12
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Two things come to mind:

1. Rescue Tape. This is magical stuff. It is non-stick silicon tape that binds to itself when stretched around an object. It hold to something like 900 PSI, 500 deg F, and thousands of volts. It'll create a water-tight seal to finish any electronics (I never use sticky, awful electrical tape any longer). It'll fix a leaking exhaust hose or water hose in an emergency. It'll finish off the end of cut line. Thousands of uses.
Increadible stuff! And with a whip over top makes a very strong and durable repair to presurized systems.
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Old 12-08-2010, 21:19   #13
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Not so small as a bottle of oil or a roll of tape, but if you take a vacuum cleaner with you, I bought my Stinger wet/dry type unit because it has a connection to also inflate things like... an inflatable.

I stuck it in a spot midship and bought pool vac hose long enough to reach most everywhere so the unit itself does not get dragged in and out of it's home.

You might call that one a lazy idea if you are not in a hurry to pump up your dink.
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Old 13-08-2010, 04:48   #14
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... I use flexible chopping mats in the galley...
Indeed.
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Old 13-08-2010, 07:44   #15
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Not so small as a bottle of oil or a roll of tape, but if you take a vacuum cleaner with you, I bought my Stinger wet/dry type unit because it has a connection to also inflate things like... an inflatable.

I stuck it in a spot midship and bought pool vac hose long enough to reach most everywhere so the unit itself does not get dragged in and out of it's home.

You might call that one a lazy idea if you are not in a hurry to pump up your dink.
I forgot that one, I had to use ours to suck an octopuss out of the head, (long story) . The only difference is that I bought one from home depot that snaps on a 5 gal bucket
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