Show me your bed sheets

[valhalla360]

Best thing to do is buy it in person and feel it beforehand.

It may be a bit stiff but it should feel more substantial. Stiffness will ease up after a few washes. Thin will just get worse.

Any dark color. If you are worried about making the cabin dark, use a lighter colored bed spread.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by SailRedemption

I thought cotton was a hot temp fabric. We bought some eucalyptus based sheets, tencel lyocell, recently from bed bath and beyond for its coolness and moisture control.

Well see how they go here in southeast Louisiana. They are light green with fine contrasting stripes.

I love how CF sends me off exploring all sorts of tangents .

I had never heard of lyocell, so I looked it up.
Apparently it is a type of rayon. That made no sense, as I thought rayon was synthetic. So I looked that up . Rayon starts off as cellulose that has been derived from wood pulp, and is then processed to result in synthetic fibres of pure cellulose.

I would never have considered sleeping on rayon, but some of its properties seem excellent for hot climates (it is soft, absorbent, cool, comfortable). Its reported downsides are that it is slippery, has poor durability and does not retain its "appearance" well. Maybe the downsides are minimised in lyocell.

After you have used the sheets for a while are you able to give us some feedback on how they performed under you (not how you performed under them ).

SWL

[Prairie Chicken]

We sleep on high thread count cotton from Ikea. Love the nice, crisp cotton! We have both white & navy. Yes, white can get stained but our magician of a laundry lady fixes that. Do try Ikea. Their bedding & towelling is good and the stores are fairly easy to find. We just had to patch a small rip on our 23-year old sheet for the the vberth! Now, admittedly, that was for the guest cabin & rarely used, but the sheet still feels fine as a vberth cover on our current boat.

Bamboo is a synthetic material, which I didn't realize when I bought it for the house. It feels nice, but is hot, and wrinkles badly. We use it in winter to keep warmer. In summer we switch to high-quality cotton. I wouldn't buy bamboo again, and wouldn't recommend it.

[Prairie Chicken]

I should add that having two sets of bedding for your bunk really makes life easier--trying to wash & dry a set in one day in order to get it back on the bunk in time for bed can be a real PITA. Having a second set is much easier, and you can add a bit of variety by changing up the color.

[a64pilot]

Poncho liner
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001L0VX2W...a-315473101596

You can get them for about half that at a surplus store. Military is issued poncho's and other wet weather gear, the ponchos are just that, and sometimes when you get wet, you get cold. That is what the poncho liner is for.
However, just like everything else in the Military, Joe will come up with other uses for anything, the steel helmet for example is your sink, you wash clothes in it, use it to pick up things like empty cartridge cases, it even a decent shovel and all kinds of other uses. I've even seen them used as a Dutch oven.
Anyway the poncho liner weighs ounces, packs down really small,and works great as a blanket.
Weight and size really matters if everything you have has to be carried on your back.
Anyway many of us used them to line our sleeping bags in cold weather like Bosnia or Korea, and a poncho liner washes easily, a sleeping bag? Not so much so it kept the sleeping bag clean.

[indiana_ct]

Lime green microfibre and deep red polycotton. The microfibre pills a little but it is easy to wash. I especially like the feel of microfibre on the pillow.
Bright colours and stripes are more forgiving about little marks.
Ir is sweat, not sunscreen, that has stained through pillow cases and ruined the appearance of the pillow itself.

[Naughty Cat]

Just gone to bamboo (fresh hay shade) and very very pleased. Granted, we always shower to remove the day's sweat, salt, grime and sunscreen (seriously, doesn't everyone?) But it is very light and compact, cool, silky and anti bacterial so doesn't get smelly over time. As I said, early days but so far we are big fans. The shade is to avoid white which is a bit of a liability on board.

[mikedefieslife]

Yep I think everyone goes to bed nice and clean. They might not wake up that way though. Likewise they might take a siesta during the day. Need to climb onto the bed to get something, need to lift the bed to access storage, or even need to do a quick bit of boat work that involves lying on the bed.

I think sweat and human oils and stuff are the biggest problem apart from sunscreen. Unfortunately on a boat you probably can't change your sheets every day, or wash them as often as you might normally.

By the way I'm talking the med summer, where internal temperates might be 30c at night.

[Naughty Cat]

We are using bamboo in the med. We keep old duvet covers and fitted sheets for everything, including draping over the bed if you have to climb over them and use beach towels for siestas as they are much better able to handle creams and salt water. Not saying that one has to be this precious but if you do spend money on good mattresses and linen you have to take more care to look after them

[cj88]

Lenzing has a nicer method of making the Lyocell yarn than normal process of making bamboo yarn. The weaving is still down to the different manufacturers processes. If you looking at bamboo bedding you might also look at Modal.

Thread count is not the be all and end all of selecting good cotton sheets. The longer staple length makes for a better, stronger sheet which is why Egyptian cotton is so good.

Also, have a look at proper Linen sheets. Linen actually gets better with age and is wonderful in hotter climates too.

[brookiesailor]

Just a silly question...Do the bamboo sheets rot over time?

[SecondBase]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Ah, poncho liners, about the warmest thing there is that weighs nothing.
In Germany we had them sewn into our wet weather gear, warm and dry, a nice combination.

And the poncho liner lasts at least a lifetime. A zipper around the long side and one end gives a mid temp sleeping bag.

[Sailorbob8599]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

White, thousand count cotton.

I do all our washing by hand on board and find it the easiest to launder, as it can just be soaked in Vanish overnight (peroxide, not chlorine based) and it comes up pristine with no scrubbing. Colours are far harder to deal with.

A lower thread count (eg 400) would be easier to handle and would dry more quickly, but good bed linen is one of the luxuries I enjoy, so I find it worth the extra trouble.

SWL

I mis-read your post, I thought you said you soaked your sheets overnight in "VARNISH" & was dreaming up all kinds of difficulties that would create.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Sailorbob8599

I mis-read your post, I thought you said you soaked your sheets overnight in "VARNISH" & was dreaming up all kinds of difficulties that would create.

LOL .
Vanish is a miracle product. It gets rid of most things other than grease (that needs soap) with an overnight soak. The items look pristine after a soak. This is invaluable when you have no washing machine to do the work for you. Vanish comes in several versions. I buy both the one for whites and the one for coloured items. Whites are dead easy to maintain, as not having to be concerned about removal of colour, the product is stronger.

I have had no washing machine for a decade and I don't use public laundries (I tried that once in a marina and never again!). For large items like patchwork quilts I wait until I find a good laundry with large capacity machines and hand them in to be done. This is only a once a year task though.

SWL

[David B]

Originally Posted by mikedefieslife

Oh errr. Actually don't, but do tell what colour/type you use.

I brought my soft white high thread count bed sheets with me when I became a liveabord. As you can imagine they lasted all of 10 minutes before they were were ruined. Pillow cases are the worst.

The biggest culprit is sunscreen which of course leaves rust stains due to avobenzone, then it's a whole bunch of other little marks and stains that you get on a boat. Next is the laundries. Mostly in the med you don't get self-service laundries, so you are relying on someone else washing them. They don't always follow your instructions or use the right products to keep things looking fresh and white.

So what colour is your bedding, and how stain resistant is it?

White.
Our routine is showering at the end of the day. Makes sense on a boat as otherwise, you get up, have a shower, then get dirty/salty/sunscreeny!

Washing is easy, and we either hang on a line from forestay to shrouds - dry in two hours.
Or hang below over night - dry in the morning