Washing Clothing While at Sea?

[trimarannaga]

Clothes? What clothes? Ha ha. What we do on our tiny trimaran...
Wash in fresh. Minimal water. Minimal soap. Agitate and scrub apenty. Rinse in salt water till all the soap is gone. Rinse in fresh. Squeezing most of the water out between steps is also important.
We have a water tank holds 40 gal max. Another 15 in jugs. We crossed from panama to marquesas 4000 miles nonstop. 25 days. That was our longest passage to date. We washed clothes twice after rain showers. I guess what i am saying is you dont really need thousands of heavy gallons of water. Just be frugal and concious of water usage. If you dont have it to spare, dont wash the clothes.

[model 10]

It was mentioned before , Ammonia works pretty well. The left over water looks pretty skanky so maybe do it 2x.

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by mrohr

... a salty garment hug up to dry in a spanking breeze will ultimately become somewhat less salty since the flapping garment wiil shake out some of the salt crystals.

Provided (if you're sailing) it's hung high enough on the rig to be well above the salt spray zone, say on a flag halyard.

If you have can spare a small amount of fresh water you can then rinse it sparingly as well, but the idea is mainly valuable for the situation where you don't.

BTW- I always pass a line though both arms of any shirts or trousers, but I guess that's an obvious precaution.

[Lepke]

Salt is a natural bleach. Soaking while clothes in a bucket of salt water plus a couple inches of rock salt will whiten. That's how we did our hats in USN boot camp.