Month: September 2012

Boat keeping — In Praise of Vinegar

Pearl's Main CabinHaving lived on Pearl oddly enough requires one to do regular housekeeping, or in this case boat-keeping, on the interior. Messy is ok. Grubby is not good. There are a couple of things that I have learned over the past few months that I figured I’d share; a number of these involve vinegar.

As a sidebar, I would like to mention that a friend of mine, Denise, who helped move Pearl from Texas to Florida bought a lot of vinegar. She bought vinegar by the gallon. She was convinced that it was a panacea for boat related stuff: cutting soap scum, sanitizing dishes, inhibiting mold, … the list goes on. I thought she was quite mad. It sounded too hippie-godess-ish but I decided to humored her. We must all learn from our mistakes, after all.

As it turns out, Denise was right. Vinegar, sometimes in conjunction with other stuff, is GREAT! Additionally, it isn’t as caustic or harmful to the environment as bleach or many other commercially available products. Note that all of the gray water on a boat goes directly over the side — unlike sewage that goes in a holding tank.

Cleaning the head: vinegar and Simple Green in equal parts do wonders to keep the shower and head crisp, clean, and smelling good. I also use this combination to mop the floors in the salon and berths. Note that the heads on most boats (if nothing else) smell  musty, particularly in warm weather, and the vinegar combo works wonders on keeping it fresh.

Cleaning the toilet: if you use the head on you boat, it tends to get a bit smelly. Many live-aboards, therefore, do not use the head (toilet) on the boat. They hike over to the restrooms on the dock. The odor issue is easily resolved by pouring a healthy splash of vinegar down the toilet periodically. I haven’t worked out the chemistry, but it works!

For extra points, pour a cup of tide into the holding tank every time it gets pumped out. This apparently loosen “gunk” in the system and keeps things smelling fresh and clean as well. Obviously, this isn’t ideal if there aren’t any pump-out facilities. Just saying. Avoid disgorging tide enriched sewage on remote reefs and anchorages.

Cleaning the Galley: yup. you guessed it. A bit of vinegar goes a long way in cutting grease and attendant odors.

Cleaning oneself: a bit of diluted vinegar on a wash cloth. I didn’t realize how much water I used when showering until I had a bath on Pearl and drained one of the water tanks. Keeping yourself clean and fresh when away from a convenient water source is … challenging. I have no interest in being a stinky pirate.

“The solution:” bathe in sea water, wipe yourself down with a washcloth soaked in a diluted vinegar solution, and have a quick fresh water spritz. This can keep your bath down to less than a gallon and leave you feeling fresh and clean. If you want to be even more miserly with your water, just wipe yourself down with a wash cloth soaked with the diluted vinegar solution. Yeah. You might smell odd for a bit, but at least you wont stink.

If you’ve got this far, you’re probably thinking “Gawd! Enough vinegar already!?!” so, I will. C’est tout.

P. S. I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts, and ideas about effective boatkeeping.

 

Pigoletto and and the Pirate Pub Crawl

As it turned out, the day that Pigoletto arrived in Key West coincided with the first annual “Talk Like a Pirate” pub crawl. How could we resist. We had to join. Urged on by my friend MaryLynne from the Pirate Costume Store on Simonton St., we donned pirate attire and headed out for the evening.

The first stop was, predictably, named the Rum Barrel — the only bar in Key West that seems to serve the Kraken. For those of you haven’t tried Kraken, my only advice is “don’t.” It makes one do stupid things like walk up to total strangers and say things like “Aaaaar! Matey!”, and “Huzzah!!!”

Needless to say the evening was lots of fun. Even though I don’t encourage, support, or otherwise endorse piracy would I do it again: absolutely. Most of the Pirates were from the local sailing community, and are genuinely interested in the seamanship and maritime traditions. It was nice to meet and engage with them. I will save my thoughts re actual Pirates for another time.

 

Isaac in Retrospect

Isaac was an interesting experience. While I had to set a boat up for a hurricane previously in the British Virgin Islands, this time I couldn’t call the charter company, hand the boat off, and walk away. The storm itself where I was in Key West didn’t feel much worse than a windy day on the San Francisco Bay.

What I learned from Hurricane Isaac follows:

  • Preparation is everything: anything you have to do in a storm will be much harder in high winds with a boat pitching in the rain.
  • Be willing to walk away if conditions warrant: this is a hard one, and particularly with regard to what the conditions need to be before you pull out. My benchmark is what it takes to get me and my crew to safety.
  • It’s not okay to keep your sails on: I secured Pearl’s sails so that they would not unfurl as a result of a furling line failure. I did this by tying the sails down using a series of vertically arranged half-hitches and secured the free ends with a round turn and two half hitches for this. This isn’t something I would do again. The sails come off.
  • Chafe gear: I can’t stress how important this can be, and how important it is to check it. A friend whose boat was on the mooring field broke loose because his chafe gear and mooring line chafed through.
  • Mooring lines: at a dock, these are critical. I had my dock lines tripled at each attachment point to control side-to-side movement and my spring lines doubled on each side to check front to back movement.
  • Be aware of tides and storm surge.