Laundry and Hot Water Showers

[mrohr]

Get yourself a rectangular bucket that will accodomate your bare foot ,now now need for a plunger and less effort too; just look at those school kids in 3rd. world countries ,they all leave their tarpaper shacks looking immaculate.
Saltwater in a black bucket with joy can give a good first soak if left in the sun ; rinse with fresh. Same with your body. T -storm coming ? Get out the soap! Wear synthetics, fibers do not absorb water and drip dry quickly,take up less space too.
Like Zeehag ,I keep a few(very) items for wear ashore in the unlikely event that I'm invited to the ambassadors residence for tea.
As stated VERY little clothing required in the tropics or summers in the midlatitudes.

[AnchorageGuy]

It would sound like you plan on many, many, very long offshore passages based on your needs. Otherwise you will always be near a shore facility that will let you do your laundry and should be able to fill your water tank. Otherwise, as you mention, you will need a good quality watermaker and then you can take as many showers as you want for as long as you want and still be able to do laundry. But a watermaker uses power and you will also need to provide that power to run the watermaker. These are all pieces of the long distance cruisers puzzle. If your means will not allow for the expenses these systems require you might consider changing your cruising grounds to eliminate the need to spend weeks offshore where fresh water is not available. We have lived aboard and cruised extensively for 22 years and water has never been a problem. On our cruises to the Caribbean and even the Bahamas, the watermaker ran daily. But even then, we used shoreside laundry facilities and would stop about every 10 days just to do laundry. Susan has occasionally done laundry on deck in a couple of buckets. Living in warmer climates requires much less laundry, swim suits and T-shirts are the order of the day. Our current trawler carries 150 gallons of water. We both shower every day, do dishes, brush our teeth and are really not very conservative with our water use. Our tanks will last us almost 2 weeks and we can stretch that if needed. Then we stop somewhere that water is available. Chuck

Originally Posted by sailor49

Concerning Small Sailing vessels(28ft-35ft) I have a simple question, How in the world do you maintain a clean fresh wardrobe (laundry) and take a fresh water hot shower as often as you need with out being the cause of local air pollution??? With my fixed income and limited means the Transition from land locked in a corn field in Indiana back to the Ocean that I left is difficult. (Ex Captain 3000Gt Oceans) At my advanced age I would like to have as many creature comforts aboard as is possible. Cleanliness and a decent comfortable place to lay my head among the top 10. Every vessel i can find at a price i can afford is not equipped with what is needed for extended offshore voyages. Two weeks or more. How do you guys do it???.
P.S. Are water makers worth the astronomical expense???