Drying clothes

[xeon_tsd]

Well the wife so far is doing well with packing up the family and sailing off.... EXCEPT... she wants a friggen dryer. She is convinced that we cant dry clothes with out them becoming encrusted in salt.

Any help, thoughts, suggestions????

[Kettlewell]

Stay in the tropics where you don't need a lot of clothes. Seriously, you wear mostly bathing suits. Get rid of thick cotton and other stuff that doesn't dry fast. Use fast-drying synthetics, get lots of nice old fashioned wooden clothes pins (better than the plastic ones), and hang up your laundry on the lifelines. Sun-dried clothes smell nice and are soft from flapping in the breeze. On some deserted islands we have slung clothes lines between the trees for drying. In many towns you can pay to have someone launder, dry, and fold your clothes for less than you could do it yourself in a laundromat at home. When we did this in Colombia they came back cleaner than I've ever seen clean clothes--I don't want to know what chemicals they were using, but they worked great.

[Lancerbye]

Bought one of these 5 years ago. Lived aboard for 3 of the 5 years. Great machine if you have the space ,power and water.






WESTLAND
2100XC Vented AC Washer-Dryer Combo

• Model # 10495745 | Manuf. # WD2100XC

[zeehag]

when i wash my clothes they do not encrust with salt. they dry fresh and clean. ilove this life.

[Jim Cate]

Xeon, perhaps she should talk to any of the long term cruisers in your area about this! She will find that we all dry clothes on the boat, and that while rain showers sometimes interrupt the process, salt buildup just does not happen.

Cheers,

Jim

[Hudson Force]

'good advice from Kettlewell! Like Zeehag, we've no problems with laundry. When we are at a dock or mooring we sometimes take clothes to a coin laundry, but we wear little while cruising and rinse it when bathing. We don't hang out any clothes when we're beating to windward and rarely at all when we are underway, so we don't end up with salt spray on our clothes!

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by xeon_tsd

Well the wife so far is doing well with packing up the family and sailing off.... EXCEPT... she wants a friggen dryer. She is convinced that we cant dry clothes with out them becoming encrusted in salt.

Any help, thoughts, suggestions????

The only time there is any significant salt is when it is blowing 30+ knots and it is way too windy then for any washing to remain hung up anyway .

I string a line from a shroud to the staysail clew, then to the mast, then to a shroud on the opposite side and back to the clew giving me three long sections to hang washing. Clothes tend to dry more quickly strung higher.

Watch out hanging light coloured items on the lifelines, as occasionally faint rust marks can appear under the spot the clothes were pegged.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by xeon_tsd

Well the wife so far is doing well with packing up the family and sailing off.... EXCEPT... she wants a friggen dryer. She is convinced that we cant dry clothes with out them becoming encrusted in salt.

Any help, thoughts, suggestions????

With a family your laundry requirements will undoubtedly be higher than a single or couple and also your cruising grounds will have an impact.

Will very much depend of size of vessel and powersupply/requirements. Do you have genset/washing machine. how many bodies?

Plentyon CF rely on chasing up laundrymats allover at marinas and doing laundry runs.

[bobconnie]

Heck !! We have washed our stuff IN SALT WATER in a net bag behind the boat ! and then rinsed in fresh water ! and our stuff is soft and no salt bild up !! I think your ladys just a little spoiled!! LOL shoud have started her off with a bucket head at first ! then eveything is easy after that !! ask Connie !!! Just kidding guy ! but why just a dryer??

[Palarran]

I had a guy tell me that if I wanted to enjoy my boat and stay married, do whatever it takes to keep your wife happy. So we have a washer/dryer and electric toilets. It was a small, small price to pay in order to keep the boat and wife. Don't fight the small stuff.

[Cheechako]

Nothing wrong with lifeline dried clothes... they are not salty unless you are beating to weather!! But asmentione above.. who needs clothes?

[svBeBe]

Originally Posted by xeon_tsd

Well the wife so far is doing well with packing up the family and sailing off.... EXCEPT... she wants a friggen dryer. She is convinced that we cant dry clothes with out them becoming encrusted in salt.

Any help, thoughts, suggestions????

We are in our 7th year of our circumnavigation and currently 3/4ths of the way around. We have a washer/dryer. We never use the dryer. We put up a clothesline between furled genoa and port and starboard shrouds. We hang the clothes and never have had any salt, nor have we lost any clothes. When we are in a marina, we still not use the boat dryer, electing to use the marina dryers.

You do not need a dryer, but a washer is priceless.

Bill

[janice142]

Hello xeon. On our boat we had lines strung in the shower stall. Wash clothes, wring, clothes on hangers, sheets et al pinned on lines, turn on the exhaust fan and bungie cord another fan to the head pointing at the clothes. Within four hours (blue jeans) everything was dry. Most stuff dried in less than an hour and power consumption was not bad either.

And yes, a drier would be nice to have... I don't dry my stuff outside often because the sun is powerful. Plus I'm kind of private about some stuff, you know? And too, there's the whole aesthetics issue... (maybe that's a girl thing?)

Still, on my tiny home by washing every couple days I stay on top of the grime and it's not a lot to dry at one time. The Hella fan I installed next to my bunk can turn and points toward the line I have between bulkheads though without an exhaust mine take longer aboard Seaweed to dry -- usually two to three hours though my warm fuzzy socks seem to take forever!

As Palarran stated, (paraphrased) "happy wife, happy life" ... if it's going to mean a drier to increase your lady's happiness quotient, why aren't you on the way to the store now?! Oh yes, buy the boat first.

[xeon_tsd]

HAhaha yes yes Happy Wife is the reason for the thread. Thanks everyone. I have lived aboard before and have experienced doing laundry. Hopefully she will believe the rest of you!
She dosnt mind washing by hand. So that part is a releif.

[SailingMum]

In my cruising with 3 young children I have found laundry the hardest job. We are in NZ where even in summer you can get a few days of rain in a row, and the kids keep swimming so you have loads of wet towels. I've never had a problem with salt-encrusted clothes though. It's just hard to get them all dry sometimes. I'm sure it's way easier if you don't have kids or you are in the tropics. I'd rather not use electricity as we don't have a generator so I thought about getting a mangel (you know those things you roll clothes through) but in the end we have just managed, but it does make life suck sometimes when it rains.