MacGregorSailors.com

This looks like it might work nicely on a Mac:

Non-electric Portable Compact Mini Washing Machine

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B002C8HR9A/ ... fbook0e-20

I had one of those a long time ago - I thought it would help in the van. It's okay i guess - you put in hot water and then do it again with cold water to rinse. It's getting clothes dry that's the problem. It's okay for like a t-shirt, and your underwear but jeans and beach towels are not going to fit in a way that makes it practical.

Oh, and I also forgot - those things leak - well, the one I had did - so we always ran it over the sink.

You can do the same job faster with two plastic buckets and a wash board. One bucket for hot, the other for cold.

Eventually we gave up on doing laundry in the van or the boat - we pack up the dirty clothes and stop in at a launder-mat about once every week we are on the water or on the road. It was just so much faster and easier to take a 2 hour break at a launder-mat that we eventually stopped packing the washing machine or the wash board.

It's a great thing if you no where near a washing machine - but you also need something to spin dry the cloths too - we used a dryer that ran off a battery operated drill but now I think they make them for DC use.

If you in a slip then just use the machines in the marina! (you paying for them!)

In the early 80's while bare boating I learned to just use a 5 gal bucket w lid. Joy dishwashing soap, bucket 2/3 full w salt water and clothes. Let it slosh on deck a few hours. Dump soapy water, rinse soap out w more salt water, final rinse w collected rain water. Rinse and final rinse can be done by hand or let slosh. No phosphates even back then with good sudsing (sp) properties in the hard ocean water. Wring out and hang on life lines until dry. Back then we had the bodies for minimal clothing or none at all while away from populated areas, which was most of the time.

We still run our clothes down to the river and beat them on a rock.

Danhux wrote:We still run our clothes down to the river and beat them on a rock.

No lie, back in the late 70's I used to pal around with some old desert rats - we all towed street legal dune buggy's behind our vans. They liked to explore old mines and ghost towns so we spent a lot of time along river banks where folks would float a dredge on an inner tube. (LOT's of places like that in Nevada and CA back in the day).

Those rivers were our showers and laundry.

Danhux wrote:We still run our clothes down to the river and beat them on a rock.

Would that be with, or without, crew still in them?

Plastic bucket and a toilet plunger as an agitator works for me.

I hope that's not a freshly used plunger.

RussMT wrote:I hope that's not a freshly used plunger.

Well if u r sanatizing ur under wear with bleach why not do the plunger at the same time
Just saying that's all I mean after all Skid Marks r "Skid Marks " nobody's asking whose they r or where they came from! !!
J

Highlander wrote:

RussMT wrote:I hope that's not a freshly used plunger.

Well if u r sanatizing ur under wear with bleach why not do the plunger at the same time
Just saying that's all I mean after all Skid Marks r "Skid Marks " nobody's asking whose they r or where they came from! !!
J

Bleach would probably whiten the skid marks anyway. Good point.

We have one on our boat exact same kind....it works good ...trick is to use ammonia 1 cup to 1 gallon of water to avoid needing to rinse .....thats what a lot of the live aboard talk about doing on the cruiserforum ....works good ....then use those black metal paper clips and hang clothes out to dry ...works perfect

Well that's if in salt water if in fresh water by all means rinse but apparently it's harder to rinse salt water out of clothes than it is detergent so all the cruisers use ammonia in regular water and no need to rinse