Bucket Laundry

On longer cruises, where we may not get somewhere with reliable laundry facilities for over a week, it sometimes becomes necessary to wash our laundry by hand. And sometimes, just to save a bit of money, I wanted to wash the smaller laundry items by hand to cut down on our load size when we take them into the laundromat.

Unfortunately, doing laundry on the boat is something at which I have never been good particularly good. No matter how clean I thought the clothes were, they always came out smelling a bit musty and I would have to take them to the laundromat anyway. So, onto the internet I went for a thorough explanation of how to clean clothes on a boat. Luckily I did not have to search far, as one of my fellow boaters had the answer written out neatly in her own blog! So, thank you Windtraveler for helping me discover this little gem of a secret.

The answer, as it turned out, is Ammonia. I had a hard time believing this as ammonia is definitely NOT what I wanted my clothes to smell like but, trusting her experience, I gave it a try. Surprisingly, that was the key component I was missing. No idea why this works (as ashamed as I am about that with my chemistry background) but I am glad to have finally found the solution.

Here's the process I use:

1. Fill a bucket half full of water, add a heaping capful of ammonia and a small amount of laundry detergent (I use the liquid kind).
2. Add clothes and use a small toilet plunger to agitate the clothes.
3. Let sit for an hour or longer for dirtier clothes. If I have stains, I try to pretreat them, and if that doesn't work, I will scrub them by hand at this point.
4. Agitate occasionally throughout the soak period and then agitate again at the end.
5. Rinse clothes (I do one piece at a time) in a second bucket of clean water.
6. Squeeze them out well so that they dry quicker and then hang them on the lifelines to dry. Voila! Clean Clothes!

Lesson learned: always use adequate clothes pins - especially on windier days!


Now I am a master at bucket washing our clothes! And a dollar saved is a dollar spent on rum!!