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Keeping things ship-shape, clean and dry aboard a boat is always a
challenge.
Maintaining foodstuffs in an edible condition can be
tricky, even
with refrigeration aboard. Clothes tend to become damp and musty unless stored with
care. Here we hope to exchange ideas and tips on getting everything stowed
in the best way for a combination of convenience, economy and good
results. For example: even in the
humid tropical atmosphere of a Caribbean rainy season, we found that storing
our cleaned and carefully dried winter clothes in cotton denim bags kept
them remarkably fresh and dry, while clothes hung in nearby
wardrobes turned musty and damp with the sheer weight of water in the
air. Coating our eggs in Vaseline prevented them from going off
and a little vinegar soon cleared the vaseline from the shells.
We used self-sealing plastic bags, with zipper-type closures, over the shop wrappings of
sugar, pasta, rice etc., which seemed to keep them fresh and dry. Then
we purchased a vacuum-packing machine, lightweight and compact and very
easy to use, and are now using it for everything aboard. If you launder
an item of clothing of which you are very fond and are not planning to
wear it at sea, having made sure the item is absolutely bone
dry, you can fold it neatly and put it in a length of the special
tubular plastic that is sold for use with vaccuum packers, sealing it
against all the usual mould spores and other horrors of transporting
fabrics in the atmosphere that prevails on oceans. If
the item is too large, try cutting two lengths off the roll of plastic,
slitting each up one side and starting by creating a larger bag out of
the two opened-up sheets. Once the item is inside the bag, work your way
around the larger-than-usual open neck with the heat sealing part of the
machine and, when there is just a small open corner left, put that over
the vaccuum nozzle and suck the air out before sealing that as well.
Vaccuum packed clothing doesn't just stay fresh. It takes up a great
deal less space in lockers too! Have
you any tips for keeping things packed away safely? Do you know any
good ways of getting the most out of the space available? Share your
ideas with our readers - drop us a line by e-mail! |
