Hygiene; Keeping clean while underway......

[skylark]

Hygiene

Failure to keep yourself clean leads to discomfort due to feeling sticky, greasy, stinky and grungy.  If you add this to seasickness and sunburn, it becomes a reason that people come home early or even decide they don't like sailing.

Hygiene is routine for most of us, we are very used to cleaning up at our normal place of living, which probably has running hot water and a shower.  On a boat, hygiene is not difficult but it requires you to figure out how to do it and you will have to establish a different routine.  It is important to create a routine because hygiene is something you need to do repeatedly, day after day.  The first time you do it, it will seem strange that you have to think so much about how you do simple things.  After about three days of following a new hygiene routine, it should start to become easy to do without much effort.

Here is an example of a hygiene routine where there is no running hot water. 

Full routine
Equipment: Stove, pot, washbowl, washcloth, towel, toothbrush, baking soda, soap, razor
Optional equipment: thermometer, washbasin

Try to find a place with some privacy, and where splashes of water on the floor are not a problem.  There should be a place to hang your clothes where they won't get wet from your splashing.

Heat 1 quart (or less!) of water to about 110F.  This takes only a few minutes.  A  thermometer makes this easy.

Pour the water into the washbowl, which should be sized properly to allow you to scoop the water out with your hands.  You can put the washbowl into a larger washbasin to catch splashes and keep them off the floor.

Wet the toothbrush, pour a little soda into your palm, and pick up the soda with your toothbrush.  Brush your teeth, scoop a handfull of water and rinse your mouth, spitting in a sink or elsewhere than your washbowl. Rinse your mouth three times.

Splash your face, get a little soap on your hands and wet and massage your face and hair.  Don't lather up, use only a small amount of soap with water.  Make sure the area around your eyes is clean of oils and residue. Be gentle around your eyes.  Splash and rinse.

Use a little more soap and massage and lather your facial hair.  Use the razor to shave, rinsing it frequently in the washbowl.  Splash and rinse your face.

The order in which you do your cleanup is very important. 

Disrobe.  Wet a washcloth.  Add a small amount of soap.  Wipe and scrub your face, shoulders, hair,  belly, arms and armpits.  Repeat a few times.  Rinse the washcloth so it has no soap, and repeat a  few times.  Dry with a towel.

Wet a washcloth.  Add a small amount of soap.  Wipe down your legs and feet.  Repeat a few times.  Rinse the washcloth so it has no soap, and repeat a  few times.  Dry with a towel.

Using your hands, wash your crotch and genitals with soapy water.  Wash your hands, wet the washcloth, and use the washcloth to wash the crotch and genitals with a little bit of soap.  Rinse your hands and the washcloth, and wash to remove soap.

Towel dry, using toilet paper to dry your crotch.

Wash your hands three times and you are done.  You may want to stand around a bit to air dry before putting your clothes back on.

This full procedure will leave you feeling clean, almost as clean as taking a shower.  You can do this in the morning, or sometime during the day when it is warmer and more comfortable. 

You should wash the washcloth in very hot or boiling hot water before reusing it.  Pour hot water on it, stir it around for a while, let the water cool to where you can touch it, and wring it out repeatedly.  A thermometer is very useful to know when hot water is safe to touch.

You should wash your face and hands several times a day, in the morning when you get up, after working on something or touching something dirty, after getting sweaty, and before you eat.

I apologize about writing about something so simple that it seems that everyone should already know how to do this.  However, someone who is used to taking a shower every day and has never washed themselves out of a washbasin needs to learn this skill to be comfortable.  I think a lot of people do not know that you can keep yourself clean without a shower.

[Captain Smollett]

Heat 1 quart (or less!) of water to about 110F.  This takes only a few minutes.  A  thermometer makes this easy.

Heat one-half to one-third (**) of your desired total amount to boiling and don't need a thermometer or to guess about the temperature. 

(**) You may trial and error it here to find what's most comfortable for you.  You'll also have to adjust a bit as the temperature of the cold water you use to dilute the hot water to final volume changes.

Some sample numbers, assuming 70 degree cold water:

Using a 3:1 ratio of cold water to hot water gives:

       a final temperature of 105.5 degrees
       uses about the same fuel than heating total water to 110 degrees

Using a 2:1 ratio of cold water to hot water gives:

      a final temperature of 118 degrees
      uses about 1% less fuel than heating total water to 110 degrees

These numbers will change a little if your cold mixing water is hotter or colder than 70 degrees.

[Auspicious]

I'd like to add that a good supply of baby wipes makes a tremendous contribution to feeling clean. Baby wipes lets me push water-based clean-up to every 2 to 4 days depending on the passage, weather, and company.

I recently spent a week sailing with my girl friend. We both used 2-3 gallons of water to shower every other day (including washing hair) and used baby wipes once or twice in between. I shaved every day; if I had less romantic company I would have stretched that.

I suggest, whatever your ritual, you do your clean-ups before going to bed, which helps keep linens acceptable for much longer.

[s/v Faith]

I'd like to add that a good supply of baby wipes makes a tremendous contribution to feeling clean........

........I suggest, whatever your ritual, you do your clean-ups before going to bed, which helps keep linens acceptable for much longer.

  Going to bed with salt water crust around your eyes is no way to live....  :P

   Unless it is cold, warming the water is not such a big deal (for us anyway).  Baby wipes help quite a bit, and are great when you are not in a calm enough setting to clean up properly.

  Rose and I used a small garden sprayer, and found we could get by with very little water... Lin and Larry use a big one, but ours is a hand held 1 qt sprayer.  We found we could both get pretty clean on a quart of water using this.  Of course washing hair might take a bit more, but we brought a few bottles of that 'waterless shampoo' but found it worked best if you rinsed with a bit of water when you were done.

[Captain Smollett]

Great discussion!!  As stated, hygeine is a BIIIG part of crew morale (not to mention the health benefits).  I have found that when I'm tired and icky, just about nothing feels as good as putting on a nice clean shirt.  But I hate to do that if *I* am all dirty...

  Rose and I used a small garden sprayer, and found we could get by with very little water...

We've got three of those blamed things.   ;D

A 1 qt hand held (very handy), a gallon and a two gallon.  With the two gallon one, I have "showered" aboard on about 1 gallon of water (not every day...sponge baths in between), and likewise found I did not have to heat the water.

I like the baby wipes idea...I'm sure Becky will, too.  We use the hand wipes a lot for quick clean-ups (like before meals), so adapting to 'bath time' should be pretty easy.

Craig, where did you get the waterless shampoo?

[s/v Faith]

Good stuff!

I went ahead and split this off of the original topic for more discussion.

[s/v Faith]

Craig, where did you get the waterless shampoo?

  I got the first bottle from REI... Pricy.  The other 3 we bought at Walgreens, they carry several types of waterless shampoo.

[Lynx]

Staying unsmelly will help the relations with the locals. Unless the locals are giveg you a hard time or making you their clown, then go into town real smelly and in rags. Bath after town visit.

[Godot]

I use the baby wipes all the time while sailing.  You can get quite reasonably clean without making a huge mess of the boat.  I like the ones with aloe.   I also find the occasional swim helps a lot.  While it can leave salt on your skin if you don't fresh water rinse,  I find it is a net plus.  More salt and grime comes off than gets redeposited.  Not recommended while underway.

I use toothpaste instead of baking powder (about the only piece of onboard hygiene that remains identical to shoreside).

[CharlieJ]

Based on three years as a live aboard, and several years full time cruising, when the water was clean enough we usually bathed in saltwater, using Joy detergent, and rinsed in fresh. Normally little shortage of salt water so you could get as clean as you wanted. ;D

Trick is to keep TWO towels- one used ONLY for drying after the salt water bath if you didn't rinse. If you promptly dry off, the salt crystals don't form on your body and you don't feel as sticky, provided the salt water is clean with no muck in it. Personally I could go for several days or more bathing only in saltwater, provided I promptly dried. I did rinse certain private areas more often. I keep my hair ( what there is of it) extremely short so that isn't a problem.

For that rinse off we used a pump up garden sprayer. We had a stainless one then sold by Sears.  But now you can purchase a very nice, ready made sprayer shower from Duckworks. They have these specially made for them. REALLY a nice setup. When our current sunshower conks out I intend to buy one of these.



here's the link. I have no interest in Duckworks myself, although Chuck is a good friend.

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/gear/shower/index.htm

[KenR]

We have two of the solar shower bags that we fill prior to leaving home. The water heats really well, (Florida) and it no problem to take a very quick and effective shower on deck. Depending on anchorage we may shower in the cockpit using cover from the dodger for modesty.

For a long weekend they are perfect and very little trouble.

[AdriftAtSea]

Charlie-

Do you know if they sell just the hose, since it appears that the hose fitting on most of the garden sprayers is fairly standard. :) I have a black garden sprayer already, and find if you leave it in the sun...you get free hot water. :)

[CharlieJ]

Nope- the company that builds the sprayers makes the complete setup JUST for Duckworks. Has a  6 foot hose.

But you can get a kitchen sink sprayer and put THAT on your pump sprayer. That's what I did on our Sunshower and also on my old stainless sprayer- it fit right into the existing hose.

But for those who don't already have a sprayer- the Duckworks setup is a good deal at 22 bucks all ready to go.

[CapnK]

Down here, you don't even need things to be black-colored in order for the sun do do a great job heating them up in a matter of a couple of hours...

In fact, I've had *too hot* water come out of the black-colored solar showers. At the end of a long hot summer day, about the last thing I want to put on me is something hot. ;D

[dnice]

Just thought I would second the use of waterless shampoo and wipes.
(For those days in between or stormy weather or whatever)

In NOLA during the 2 weeks following katrina, there was not much water worth bathing in where I was at. We had drinking water and ice (and MRE's) given to us by the National Forestry Service volunteers. The first guys in long before Red Cross or Fema...

Anyway, I got some Waterless shampoo and rinseless bathing wipes (not baby wipes) from the Red Cross. That stuff works great. The shampoo in particular, just lathers up and towels dry (no idea what brand it was).

When we were able to shower under the water hose again, even in 100f heat, the water was unbearably cold, so it ended up being much easier to do a sponge bath type of thing, and continue to use the waterless shampoo, that way we didn't have to be submerged in the icy waters.

Looking back I wish I would have thought of the solar bag, coulda put one of those together easily.

[AdriftAtSea]

Anyway, I got some Waterless shampoo and rinseless bathing wipes (not baby wipes) from the Red Cross. That stuff works great. The shampoo in particular, just lathers up and towels dry (no idea what brand it was).

Believe they sell similar stuff at the drug store.  Bath in a Bag is one of the brand names IIRC.  We used them when Gee was in the hospital after her surgery.

[s/v Monomoy]

I originally posted this a few months ago on SailingPensacola.com.  I did a search on this site shortly ago to see if anyone had posted anything similar and didn't find anything, so I thought I would post the note here.

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Post by BenH on Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:15 am:

For those of us who don't have a shower on-board, I thought I would pass on an idea that I came up with.

On our extended weekend trip a couple of weeks ago, we took along a couple of solar bags for showering on deck.  They worked out OK, but it was a pain to hoist the bag every time we needed it.  I was also concerned about the possibility of slipping on deck if trying to use soap to clean up a bit more.  So, after the trip I began to search for a 12v pump to make my own cockpit shower. 

I happen to run across the Reliance On-Tap Shower Unit.  It can run on 8 "D" batteries or 12v from an accessory outlet.  I picked up a 7 gallon blue water container for just under $8 at Walmart in the camping section (photo below shows water can and shower unit) and the shower unit for about $30 (incl. shipping) from BassPro.com (it is sold elsewhere online too).  I ran a 12v line and installed an accessory outlet in my rear lazzarette and placed the water container in there as well.  Now if we want to shower on an extended trip, I just pull out the shower, insert the pump into the water can, plug in the power, and have a cockpit shower that is safer to use, because you can sit to shower or if you stand and slip, you aren't going far and I don't have to hoist any solar bags.  It works really well.  With the temps we have during the day, even with the water not exposed to the sun directly, it gets warm enough for a nice shower.

Here's a picture of the assembly.



I'm considering getting this inflatable shower enclosure sometime in the future.  Not sure how well it will work out in the cockpit, but since it is inflatable, it will store easily and I might be able to figure out how to set it up decent in the cockpit for more private showering at times.

[Tim]

Here is a pump shower I just tested out in Desolation Sound for the last couple of weeks and it worked wonderful. Easily strapped onto a cockpit rail and warmed up well for the minimal sun up there.

[s/v Faith]

They both look like really cool showers.   Certainly more hight tech then the 1qt garden sprayer that we use...  ;D

[CharlieJ]

That Duckworks shower is really a nice unit isn't it Tim? I first saw it on the Texas 200 on board Chuck's boat. Chuck and Sandra wouldn't even talk to me about trading our solar shower for it ;D