Dish cleaning

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Jul 19, 2011
5
Oday 272 Alum Creek Sailing Association
This is not specific to O'Day but since we have one I will post it here I guess. We have our sailboat on an inland lake and I am wondering what people do to wash dishes. I don't want to and don't think are allowed to use dish soap since the galley sink drains overboard. What do people use?

Thanks
 
Jan 24, 2005
4,881
Oday 222 Dighton, Ma.
This is not specific to O'Day but since we have one I will post it here I guess. We have our sailboat on an inland lake and I am wondering what people do to wash dishes. I don't want to and don't think are allowed to use dish soap since the galley sink drains overboard. What do people use?

Thanks
I can understand your concern for the lake that you sail on. It would behoove you to use a dishwashing detergent and or soap that will be kind to the lake water.
Where I live on a lake, the fishing is great but nobody in their right mind would want to eat any fish that came out of there because they glow in the dark. :) However the tidal river that flows through my city has cleaned up through the years in spite of the fact that most of the rivers and brooks flow into it. In fact, it's the same river where I keep my boat moored about 7 miles from where I live.
Just two weeks ago we had a lightning storm that hit some sewer pump motors in Fall River Ma., and the sewage overflowed right into the Taunton River. It took about a week to clear out.
So you see, I really don't share the same concerns that you do because there are worse things going into my river and the bays than my dish washing detergent.
When I wash dishes on my boat I usually heat up a tea pot of water and use Dawn Liquid Detergent with a scrubby in the galley sink. I set the soapy dishes out in the cockpit to rinse later.
For rinsing, I use either a clean one gallon weed sprayer filled with water, or my Stern's Sun Shower which I now store on top of my sliding companionway hatch. I don't even need to set the shower on the boom for this. It will rinse off large grills or pots right where it is.
I cut the wan down on the weed sprayer and made it a little shorter. Penelope and I use the weed sprayer for it's cooling mist on an extremely hot day and it also serves as a good way to rinse off dishes. If I have a messy grill or pot to wash, I will rinse it out overboard before washing it in the galley sink. The galley sink can get a little messy. I put all my dishes in this cute little dish strainer and mat that I have on board and they dry in no time.

What I would do on your boat is use a bucket with a rope tied to the handle and fill it with lake water. Then use this water to clean the loose food off your dishes first before washing them in the sink. You could rinse them in the sink or out in the cockpit with clean water. My boat has less freeboard than than most of the larger O'Days which allows me to just lean over the side and gut a large fish or clean loose food off a plate or pan.
I take all my showers right in the cockpit with the bag on the boom. The water drains right out through the self bailing system.
Another thing that I do is use Dawn to lubricate my sail slides. A couple of drops of Dawn on each sail slide is all you need to get them sliding beautiful. The rain will wash out my mast track nice and clean later on.
 
Jan 22, 2008
423
Catalina 30 Mandeville, La.
If you lived on the gulf coast, you could think of it as doing your part to disperse the BP oil leak.
 
Jun 8, 2009
3
2 25 Whitby
This is not specific to O'Day but since we have one I will post it here I guess. We have our sailboat on an inland lake and I am wondering what people do to wash dishes. I don't want to and don't think are allowed to use dish soap since the galley sink drains overboard. What do people use?

Thanks
We have same concerns and now use plasticised paper plates, bought by the dozen, and dump them in recycling blue-box. Not as cheap but really upsetting when heavy rainfalls wash off animal waste, lawn fertilisers and weed killers plus overeloaded sewage systems. Our Lake Ontario then has piles of stinking, rotting algae along the shoreline. But we did our bit.
 
Jan 24, 2005
4,881
Oday 222 Dighton, Ma.
We have same concerns and now use plasticised paper plates, bought by the dozen, and dump them in recycling blue-box. Not as cheap but really upsetting when heavy rainfalls wash off animal waste, lawn fertilisers and weed killers plus overeloaded sewage systems. Our Lake Ontario then has piles of stinking, rotting algae along the shoreline. But we did our bit.
In 2009 the Washington Senate declared the Taunton River in MA. as one of the "Wild and Scenic Rivers" in the U.S. Penelope and I have walked a small part of that shoreline of the Somerset/Fall River area all year round and believe me, there is nothing scenic about that river.
Near the Weaver's Cove area of the river there are tires, bottles, cans, plastic barrels, and refuse of all kinds that cover that shoreline and this is just a small part of it. I have no qualms whatsoever with washing my dishes or taking a shower on my boat. My slightly soiled water emptying into that river from my boat can never be worse than what is being dumped in it from all the surrounding towns on that river on a daily basis.

While I too believe that everyone needs to do their part, a question comes to mind about how extreme our part should be.
Almost every street in my city is litter strewn. Every day I walk down my road and I pick up litter and every week the same jerk in my neighborhood keeps throwing it back in the street because he knows that I'm picking it up. I'm doing my part in my own neighborhood every single day but it only takes one to ruin it every single week.
 
Dec 8, 2006
1,085
Oday 26 Starr, SC
I can understand your concern for the lake that you sail on. It would behoove you to use a dishwashing detergent and or soap that will be kind to the lake water.
Where I live on a lake, the fishing is great but nobody in their right mind would want to eat any fish that came out of there because they glow in the dark. :) However the tidal river that flows through my city has cleaned up through the years in spite of the fact that most of the rivers and brooks flow into it. In fact, it's the same river where I keep my boat moored about 7 miles from where I live.
Just two weeks ago we had a lightning storm that hit some sewer pump motors in Fall River Ma., and the sewage overflowed right into the Taunton River. It took about a week to clear out.
So you see, I really don't share the same concerns that you do because there are worse things going into my river and the bays than my dish washing detergent.
When I wash dishes on my boat I usually heat up a tea pot of water and use Dawn Liquid Detergent with a scrubby in the galley sink. I set the soapy dishes out in the cockpit to rinse later.
For rinsing, I use either a clean one gallon weed sprayer filled with water, or my Stern's Sun Shower which I now store on top of my sliding companionway hatch. I don't even need to set the shower on the boom for this. It will rinse off large grills or pots right where it is.
I cut the wan down on the weed sprayer and made it a little shorter. Penelope and I use the weed sprayer for it's cooling mist on an extremely hot day and it also serves as a good way to rinse off dishes. If I have a messy grill or pot to wash, I will rinse it out overboard before washing it in the galley sink. The galley sink can get a little messy. I put all my dishes in this cute little dish strainer and mat that I have on board and they dry in no time.

What I would do on your boat is use a bucket with a rope tied to the handle and fill it with lake water. Then use this water to clean the loose food off your dishes first before washing them in the sink. You could rinse them in the sink or out in the cockpit with clean water. My boat has less freeboard than than most of the larger O'Days which allows me to just lean over the side and gut a large fish or clean loose food off a plate or pan.
I take all my showers right in the cockpit with the bag on the boom. The water drains right out through the self bailing system.
Another thing that I do is use Dawn to lubricate my sail slides. A couple of drops of Dawn on each sail slide is all you need to get them sliding beautiful. The rain will wash out my mast track nice and clean later on.

Joe,

Maybe you should fish that glow with these lures:

http://glowinc.com/glow-in-the-dark/fishing-lures.aspx

Ed K
 

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