Toilet Paper!

[Dockhead]

Bagging and storing on board used TP?

I have only one thing to say about that practice:






This barbaric practice was one of the things I hated most about being on my father's boat.

On our boat, we use macerating toilets -- highly recommended. Really civilized people wash with soap and water, anyway, and don't really need TP, or not much.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Bagging and storing on board used TP?

I have only one thing to say about that practice:

Attachment 102457




This barbaric practice was one of the things I hated most about being on my father's boat.

On our boat, we use macerating toilets -- highly recommended. Really civilized people wash with soap and water, anyway, and don't really need TP, or not much.

There's some pretty 'civilised' people in other parts of the world that see it as uncivilised to use a knife and for, to eat with too.

[IdoraKeeper]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I flush it and don't try to do my paperwork with only 2 sheets etc. and have never had a clog.

I have never had my sons aboard without a clog...the only thing that saves is not flushing the paper. You just wait! When that clog happens and you cant find the plunger....your motoring all around the anchorage trying to borrow a plunger....all the while smelling like a sewage barge.

[bobnlesley]

We too use the thin/unquilted TP and flush method, never caused a problem in fifteen years, though I do have one long-standing question: You can visit your local grocery store/supermarket and buy name-brand, super-soft, seventeen-ply quilted toilet paper for £1.50/$2.00 a roll and that stuff probably will block the heads pump or valves , alternatively, you can buy their one/two-ply, cheap and cheerful, own-brand 'budget' TP at £1.50/$2.00 for a pack of four or even six rolls, which pumps through fine. Then you hear of people buying the exact equivalent of the grocery store's budget TP, but with a name/packaging that says its 'marine' toilet paper and pay £3.00/$5.00 a roll; why?


As an aside, we have a good friend who's a marine biologist and she hates holding tanks on small boats with a passion, insisting that said tanks are environmentally unfriendly and that on small/low occupancy vessels, predominantly unnecessary; her theory goes: That you take a single turd (including the paper) and immediately pump it out into the water (fresh or salt) and the local marine life will devour the lot in just a few minutes; areas that attract lots of boats will support and therefore generate/attract more sea-life to feed off the increased number of turds. Alternatively, you pump the waste into a holding tank, let it and several others sit there for 24-48 hours and then pump the resulting festering sludge into the water, nothing in there wants to eat it any more, so it just settles to the bottom as a pollutant.

[Mike OReilly]

On our boats we never bag the feces paper. Always went into our standard marine heads in the past, and since going to a composter (Nature's Head), it goes into the crap bin. I've never had any problems with either. However, we do use the smallest amount of paper needed to get the job done.

As a wilderness canoer/kayaker I learned how to use very few sheets to get the job done (2 to 4 if you must know). It's perfectly sanitary, and is all you need most of the time. It's no more difficult than using one standard drying towel sheet to dry your hands in a public washrooms, yet so many people insist on taking multiple sheets, or many feet of the continual flow paper (crank, crank, crank, crank...). A little care with both and you can easily get away with using a lot less.

BTW, we never ask our guests not to use the head. I would just tell them (with the standard marine head): "You clog it, you clean it. " With the composter, I don't care what they use.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

would never be able to get people out the head

Come to think of it, it might be the only seat on some boats that is "warm" and "dry" during some cruising.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by shufti

Ah-ha! moment - just realised many here (such as zeehag) mustnt have macerators. I assumed they were pretty much standard gear now. I was seriously scratching my head over the 'TP clogs toilets' thing. Zeehags post flipped the mental light switch.

I bet this same assumption has effected at least one persons argument in the 'holding tank' thread.

We don't have a macerator, nor have we ever had a clog.......


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by IdoraKeeper

I have never had my sons aboard without a clog...the only thing that saves is not flushing the paper. You just wait! When that clog happens and you cant find the plunger....your motoring all around the anchorage trying to borrow a plunger....all the while smelling like a sewage barge.

Your point above reminded me of one voyage off the California coast. I joined (as crew) a very nice, almost new, Jeanneau 42 boat with an experienced skipper and a couple (newbies who talked of buying a boat and sailing to the South Pacific) and off we went from SF down the coast to Monterrey.

On the way back to SF (bashing up the coast close hauled and going up some big Pacific swells) the other three members of the boat's crew (including the skipper) got very seasick and incapacitated.

This left me alone up on deck at the helm for the entire sail back up the coast. I saw this as an interesting experience, which I enjoyed, with a salty spray splashed grin, thinking "Now THIS is real sailing!"

Meanwhile the other three folks were sick and literally moaning aloud (which I could hear from the helm). Seriously! One was literally moaning like a dying animal. That is seasick!

But, the worst thing was that the forward "guest" head (the couple's head) got clogged and then something else happened (I did not see). It overflowed all over the head compartment, creating a sloshing, stinking, vile mess. I was told by the skipper that "gallons" of sewage were all over the head compartment and then oozing under the head compartment door to the main cabin sole.

Because I was outside in 20+knots of wind at the time, I could not smell it. But, when we finally got closer to the marina and in lighter winds, the stench was horrendous. The skipper kept the door shut and said he was going to pay to have a "boat monkey" come clean it up for him.


Lesson: A clogged head at a marina slip can be an inconvenience.

A clogged head on a close hauled boat can become a source of dread.

[ontherocks83]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

We don't have a macerator, nor have we ever had a clog.......


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

Same thing here and me nor any of my sailing guests are anything less then devestating to the head after a night of drinking.

I also have a friend with a brand new macerator and head on his cabin cruiser in boston. He claims it will handle tampons. I dispute his claim but I am also am not willing to test it either.

[zeehag]

by the way--the ONLYEST times my toilet has clogged was during the TWO times i HIRED gringo alleged help-- they clogged it really well with papier mache so i got to change out the hoses and pumps about 2 weeks after their departure.
there is no clogging when i do not hire idiots to work..mexicans do much better work than lazy gringos i have found these days.
macerator will be installed in mazatlan, but this tp problem was between toilet and tankage, so macerator wont solve it.. only abstinence from flushing tp.
the baggie of used tp only needs a place of its own to live and no one is the wiser except the user of the head who gets to use the bag for disposal.

[s/v Jedi]

Why don't you check out the test?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-twQoVcZTaw

[hellosailor]

I think Cottonelle and Charmin both (at least one does) say on the package something about guaranteed not to clog septic systems and pipes.


It has nothing to do with one layer or two, but everything to do with how the fibers are processed. Hard stiff cheap toilet paper will clog, because it is made from long stiff fibers. The good stuff is made from very short fibers, and like good facial tissue it will generate a lot of dust and lint if you work it in your hands, dry.


I can see "But I don't want to experiment with ten brands to find out that nine of them need to be unclogged again" but really...look for a brand that looks and feels soft, and guarantees not to clog systems. They're out there.


As to kids using too much paper or not flushing enough? Don't ask how much havoc they could wreak with stuffing the paper into a hole in the wall.(G) If you can't teach them, train them to use the astroturf on the foredeck, just like the dog does.

[cheoah]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Bagging and storing on board used TP?



I have only one thing to say about that practice:



Attachment 102457









This barbaric practice was one of the things I hated most about being on my father's boat.



On our boat, we use macerating toilets -- highly recommended. Really civilized people wash with soap and water, anyway, and don't really need TP, or not much.

If you've spent much time ashore in Latin America etc the idea of tossing TP in trash or bag is not foreign. For years i bypassed the bidet, and finally while living in saigon this winter I was reformed.

TP is uncivilized compared to water. I'm gonna setup a spray hose in my head when I get a chance.

We aren't used to it here in the states and elsewhere, but the hose is as good as it gets.


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[MYTraveler]

My heads have always accepted TP just fine. And I don't buy the expensive marine stuff either, but instead the cheapest 2-ply grocery store stuff. Based on my experience, and that of MANY other folks, it is clear that MANY marine heads can accept TP without any problem.
So, if your head can't reliably flush TP, why isn't the best solution to get a head that will?

[kas_1611]

We use a small waste basket with hinged lid and diaper/nappy bags to house the paper. As the diaper bag is designed to deal with much larger quantities of, let's be honest horrendous, waste and are perfumed you don't have any smell to worry about at all. When full, pull the bag out, tie it up and drop it in the garbage bag with everything else, simples.

As for quantity 3 sheets are plenty; 1 to wipe, 1 to polish and 1 to shine

Keiron