Tricks for Stowage

[IolantheSF]

I would love to hear your creative ideas for stowing stuff. We are moving from a 32ft narrow beam woodie to a 47ft wide beamed Spindrift (Formosa shipyard built). We are finding this interesting because we THOUGHT there was tons of room for storing stuff. However, every where we look, there are fragile wires and systems just about EVERYWHERE, which makes it impossible to put anything because of fear of damaging the wires and the systems. Until we can move some of them to more appropriate places, we have an issue. The other thing that we find is that there is a SINGLE hanging locker on a boat that has 3 living spaces, and a main saloon. That is NOT going to work because we are both professionals requiring hanging clothes. As long as we are both employed, we need work clothes.
I am looking for suggestions...

[wingNwing]

Tape the wires to the tops of the lockers they run through. We built bolsters (a.k.a. stuff sacks) for spare bedding & towels & off-season clothing. Sought out wrinkleproof shirts and washable wool for our professional clothing. We also knew a guy who hung a pressure-tensioned shower curtain rod, or maybe it was a rod for doing pullups in a doorframe, in the head to hang clothing. Another guy was a judge - he hung his suits and robes in a van in the marina parking lot.

[micah719]

Another guy was a judge - he hung his suits and robes in a van in the marina parking lot.

A hanging judge, eh? Hahaha. Get it? Hanging judge...ahahaha....ha.......er.......hmmm. I must go now.

[capta]

Attaching the wires should pretty much be a priority. You can get bags of little square wire holders that self stick (I'm using some in the engine room & are holding for a month now???) that take wire ties & can also use a screw to fasten them.
Now your question: Do you have a second shower, or would you shower ashore for a hanging space? If not an unused cabin?
We store a lot ( for instance winter clothes while cruising the Caribbean, ya think?) in "space bags" after vacuuming out the air, under bunks, but they'd work well in the dry parts of the bilge too, but I'd "double bag" in the bilge.
Storage is a real problem for those of us with only our floating homes. Just the spare parts a cruiser needs are enough to fill a small store, ugh.
We've a 53' center cockpit cruiser with only 2 aboard & we've had to use the whole mid-cabin for our "available here cheaply" supplies such as US toilet paper/ paper towels, my girlfriend's 31 gallons of Martinique long life milk, powdered Gatorade (really a medicine here in the Caribbean), etc.
Good Luck.

[rebel heart]

I keep my office clothes at work. There's a dry cleaning service that picks up and drops off at the office, and another across the street. I have maybe three garment bags for suits, business casual shirts, and sport coats. I have nice jeans and all my toiletries in a locker in our office locker room. I keep the clothes in a utility closet that few people have access to.

Makes life easy because I can go to work wearing really anything and within 10 minutes look like a million bucks. I travel a lot and do a lot of boat work, so it's really important for me as well to have a big dividing line between my "boat clothes" and my "business clothes".

[HopeFloats]

Don't forget to keep an index of where you put things so you and others can find things...out of sight out of mind ...or maybe that just applies to me?

I love the vaccuum bags because you can fit them into any nook and cranny. Also you can never have too much velcro and duct tape to make things fit...don't ask me to elaborate ;-)

[zeehag]

remember to stow heaviest stuff low and between masts so no hobby horsing in seas.....

[Irish rambler]

Er ! Why did you buy the boat in the first place ? I don't mean to be rude or offensive but rather than look for solutions, cure the problem, sell the boat and buy one that has all the facilities you need.

[zeehag]

place a temporary hanging pole--like a chinup bar--in your shower--it willhold the hanging clothes until you leave on trip in the beautiful leaky teaky--welcome to cf, btw--and what a lovely boat you have--my formosa was built in formosa boat builders yard....

[IolantheSF]

In answer to the question as to why we bought this boat, well....budget. If we bought the boat we wanted with all the amenities, we would be in debt. As is, we paid cash for the boat and considered ourselves fortunate to get a boat that was bigger than the 32 ft Eric we have spent the last 10 years on! I appreciate all the advice. We discovered the space bags..WAHOO!!!. I am also a fiber artist, so have lots of raw fiber and yarn. The space bags solved that one very well. I am slowly realizing that I don't need, nor do I want all the "crap" we have accumulated. Although we have been living aboard for 10 years, we still owned a 5 bedroom house our adult kids have been living in. Now that we are selling the house, we keep dragging over to the boat all this "stuff" as we empty the house. EBay and Craigs list have been generous recipients of all of our stuff.
I think that as we get more and more settled, it is all working out.

[Amapola]

We use the "guest" cabin for storage. As someone already said, keep an inventory of where you put things. It's amazing how things can get lost on a boat.

[roverhi]

Second a van in the marina parking lot. Tremendous storage capactiy for not only clothes but tools and boat parts. A 47' boat has to have a spare cabin. Rig that for temporary hanging storage. Same goes for the most useless of uselesses, the second head, if there is one.

[Irish rambler]

I wish very best of good luck with your boat and many safe happy hours in her. You are very sensible buying within your budget. A wee trick I use when storing in lockers is to try and get hold of those brass/aluminium index slots off the front of redundant steel office drawers, attach them to the front of your locker/drawer/stowage. Fill in the contents of the locker on a piece of papers and slot it in the index slot. When I need something I just slide it out and check the contents,,remember to keep it updated though.

[ranger58sb]

Milk crates to subdivide larger areas into more useful sizes and to sort "stuff" in various ways.

-Chris

[IolantheSF]

WE invested in milk crates. My husband cannot tolerate the wiring situation, so he is going through each system and re-routing, rewiring as needed, and re plumbing. He is a bit OCD!!
I, on the other hand, am not, so we have our challenges!!! Unfortunately he is becoming more like me, and I am NOT becoming more like him!!LOL. We both loved the idea of the desk label holders with removable labels that we can change as needed. SPACE BAGS have been the salvation for my collection of yarn and fiber and for clothes and linens. I really appreciate all the ideas.