Cleaning

Cleaning is an ever present process on a boat. It can be ignored for awhile, but after a few months, you’ll end up doing permanent damage (to paint and metal in particular). Dirt and mold will also appear at a much higher rate than a home, due to all the open vents and lack of insulation. There is no need to be obsessive about cleaning unless you enjoy it. We normally only clean when something’s appearance has been bothering us, and this lax approach seems to be fine.

Cleaning Products

Rather than having different cleaning products for everything, we find it easier to find a few products to reuse across the boat. For rust stains on gel coat, aluminum oxidation on winches, pots and pans, and of course stainless steel everywhere, “Bar Keepers Friend” works great. We prefer the soft cleanser as it’s easier to put on surfaces, and the can itself doesn’t rust (always prefer plastic packaging where possible). For cleaning white canvas/ fabric (mold stains mainly), mold stains on the deck, and just mold stains in general, “sodium percarbonate” (aka oxiclean) based solution work great. Leave things to soak overnight, and even the toughest stains will be removed in the morning. This however has not worked well for us when using “color safe” cleaners. Stick to stain removers for whites, and simply wash more frequently.

For oil and grease stains, and areas where we need to remove residues, regular Dawn Platinum Dish Soap is great. For water tanks, acid engine flushes, and cleaning urine deposits in the composting “liquids” container, we use citric acid. Citric acid can be found online or Walmart in person, and we go through a lot of it. Similar to oxiclean, let it soak for 12 hours mixed in water depending on the application. While not a cleaning product, we also a apply T9 Bioshield to most metal to stop rust. It definitely helps, but with the amount of condensation we have, it needs to be reapplied frequently. In many ways stopping condensation is more effective to help with cleaning, but that’s a large task.

Beside cleaning solutions, we also frequently use brass wire brushes, large sponges, medium bristle brushes, and blue Scotch-Brite pads. The wire brushes are used to knock rust off stainless steel in many areas. Large sponges are mainly for mopping up water that seeps in through “checks” (cracks) in the mast and drips into the bilges. Also used for applying oxiclean based slurries to hard surfaces like the deck in a controlled way. For blue scotch-brite and medium bristle brushes, these are both the first line of defense to scrub crud off the decks in a controlled way. If those don’t work, we move up to “firm” brushes and the green scotch-brite pads and know they will be a little destructive.

Galley and General Cleaning

We’re a little overkill about getting nothing in the water when cleaning our dishes. We seem to be the only boaters that care this much, but with the soot and whatever else coming out of engines, it probably doesn’t matter. Having said that, we first scrape our food waste into the trash, then use paper towels to mop up all the food residue. We then use HOCL and more paper towels to disinfect. HOCL (Hypochlorous acid) is a trendy disinfectant which is both powerful, and breaks down to only water and salt after disinfecting. It’s also great at deodorizing, and we use it in place of more intense disinfectants like bleach.

For stubborn food, we scrape with a brush, and if food is really stuck, we use a little low sud soap. Contaminated water is normally put directly in the trash, and clear water with just HOCL is pumped overboard. With this method we use a remarkably small amount of water, but we do waste a lot of paper towels. This is unfortunate, but the energy and resources required to produce paper towels seem to be less than we used when washing with hot water at home. We’ve tried reusable towels, but have found them to be way too much of a pain.

Outside of the galley, we also use this HOCL, soap (normally Dawn Platinum), and paper towel combo to clean all surfaces in the boat. Mold and mildew are a constant battle, and we find HOCL to normally be enough on it’s own to deodorize and remove them. If not, we step up to using soap and a blue scotch-brite. We keep two 32 ounce spray bottles of HOCL in the galley, and cut each of them with 16 ounces of distilled water in order to make the HOCL go further.

Cleaning Water Tanks

We filter all water going into the water tanks, but somehow, growth still seems to inevitably appear and come out of the faucet. We aren’t sure if this comes from the filter (changed every 6 months), or if it’s growing inside the tank, but we most often get floating “flakes” of black or white sediment. When this first happened, we put the borescope inside the tank to see what appeared as many flakes at the bottom of the tank but not the sides. In an effort to avoid cutting an access hatch, we lived with this for two years using a Brita filter only. It was unsettling seeing the flakes coming out of the faucet, but we never seemed to get sick and the water came through the Brita clear. To try and sanitize the tank, we used the method referenced below, but it never seemed to help much.

We initially avoided cutting an access hatch for fear of being inverted and having water flood out the top. Growth in our drinking water was also incredibly, a “low priority” item on the list of boat tasks. When we finally did cut a hole, we were surprised that the “growth” wasn’t attached to the tank floor, but simply floating as a layer on top. It’s possible that the bleach shocks described below had loosened the growth, but it’s more likely that tanks which are emptied often don’t get that dirty. We’ve found this to be the case with diesel tanks sitting for 9 months half full (described in “engine-maintenance”), and we no longer worry about biofilm being attached to floor or walls of the tank.

Having said that, “stuff” does still seem to get in somehow, and we’ve found it well worth it to install an access hatch. We use a Beckson hatch at 6” of diameter for the center plate. Most people recommend 6” to allow more space for cleaning, but in our 25 gallon plastic tanks, 4” would probably have been sufficient and preferred. To cut the hole, we used a slightly oversized hole saw and added rubber gasket material for under the hatch flange section. The gasket was cut by tracing the inside diameter and outside diameter of the flange, and roughly cutting with scissors before through bolting between the plastic tank, gasket, and flange head with stainless steel #8 machine screws. It’s recommend to not use silicon sealant, but instead a real rubber gasket.

For actually cleaning, we’ve again found it pretty clean and simply use HOCL to disinfect. We experimented with “Rotary Spray Balls” used by distilleries to make a smaller access hole, but we didn’t feel comfortable that they were reaching the entire tank. Once installing the access hatch, we also noticed that with our tank design, it’s impossible to completely empty through the facet. There will always be an inch of water at the bottom. Due to this we strongly recommend installing an access hatch, but as a temporary solutions you can use the directions below.

Tank Cleaning Without Access Hatch

Only fill partially to make disposal easier. This is for a plastic tank about 25 gallons of capacity.

  1. Put in 5 gallons with 100 ppm solution (use 7.5 bleach and 24 mL (~4.8 tsp). Rock boat side to side for sloshing.
  2. Plug sink, pump maybe a gallon of water into it, then pump that water into “contaminated” water jug.
  3. Allow to soak for 12 hours.
  4. Plug sink, pump rest of water into “contaminated”.
  5. Put 2 new 5 gallon jugs through the process, and use a beer keg nozzle with either a transfer pump or better yet, a wash down pump. Rock boat side to side each time.
    • For regular garden hose, use a convert from 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch.
  6. Take water at end of last jug, and measure chlorine. If 0 move forward, otherwise another 5 gallons.
  7. In all 3 “contaminated” 5 gallon jugs, add 13.2 g of sodium thiosulfate to neutralize chlorine.
  8. Dump all 5 gallon jugs in shower or toilet on land.

Cleaning Decks

Decks should be cleaned frequently with water, a soft “flagged” (tips split into ends) brush, and a small amount of biodegradable soap to prevent mold and mildew build up. For stubborn bits, use a soft sponge and more water with firm pressure. Do not let the deck get past the point where this will not work, or you will have to use more destructive methods. These are either chemical (described below), or mechanical (pressure washer or firm brush).

However on a mooring in a foggy area, this is not always possible without a lot of work and water. If it gets to the state of heavy mildew, oxiclean and barkeepers friend can be used on difficult sections. They will hurt the paint and are not recommended by paint manufacturers, but work much better than other solutions we’ve tried. Just make sure to mop it up and not let any drip overboard. For difficult oil and grease, dawn platinum is good, though again not recommended to use frequently. Prefer a regular brush to scrub, only stepping up to firmer options if needed.

As a final word of caution, we’ve only let it get to the condition of heavy mildew once. We needed to repaint the decks anyway, and were comfortable using destructive methods. There are probably better methods, and we encourage you to do your own research. Having said that, below was our process for heavy growth.

  1. Pre-wet with spray bottle
  2. Soak towel in Oxiclean that’s diluted, and let sit for 15 minutes on deck
  3. Scrub lightly with medium brush, and then mop up rest with sponge
  4. If mildew is still present, use barkeepers helper and scrub hard with a medium brush.
  5. For stuck oil and grease, use dawn dish soap platinum on a white than green scotch brite.
  6. Rinse with water and mop into bucket.