Bucket bath and showers

[Andrew]

G'day everyone,

Seems like not much info on showers and bucket baths aboard, how to wash all that encrusted salt, sand and mud off.

On Teria i've just used the old yachties favorite, a sponge/cup and bucket bath (with or without hot water added). It's cheap, simple, never fails and an absolute water miser. It keeps the cabin and bunks salt (and moisture/damp) free too. But after several days out, gotta really appreciate the hot shower ashore.

Has anyone taken onboard bathing to next level (s) ?

Just bought a $30 entry level, 12v cig lighter camp shower from Tentworld to try out, ("Companion" brand) it's running on Terias 12v system ok Immersible pump in bucket style. Gets though a 9L bucket quickly (1.5minutes on full)

5-8L Pressure pump beach showers are also out there (for surfers, kayakers) ozzie may have discussed these somewhere?

Then spotted an "Evershower" setup at tentworld. $400 top of the line recirculating recent Aussie invention, with a 25L/min pump, it's almost the shower at home and in a league of it's own ! and the narrow recirculting base box might fit into a cockpits width too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ZrqekXG5o (by inventor Larry, covers everything). It can fit inside offgrid sheds, vans, large boat cabins etc too. Stow down excellent and base can double as a solar HWS.

The other time honoured approach is "saltwater soap" or "sailors soap" . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltwater ... water-soap. Sailors on a tight water budget use a bucket of seawater with this soap, then rinse off with a little bit of freshwater.

[Ozzie]

Great idea for a thread Andrew. As Andrew has covered, I’ve tried sleeping on the boat just after only a salt swim and it’s just not comfortable as most people are aware. I’ve heard you can use cheap hair conditioner as body wash with seawater but sounds yuk to me and I’d not convince Mrs Ozzie on that one.

I do have a 12v water cube which is mentioned on here somewhere. Only issues are it’s bulky and it needs good power and I have my minimalist battery setup, which is just for nav lights and phone. I sometimes drag the cube out with a car battery if we want to clean the boat but rarely.

My total cheapskate, descendant of Scottish tightwads, no batteries invention is the “soft drink bottle self contained shower “ or “the SoDBoSCo shower.” I made this, inspired by the squeezing type eye flush bottles with air tube I always seem to be using to remove foreign bodies from my eyes. Only this needs no squeezing and emulates a regular shower.

Instructions for SODBOSCO.

Get three large, plastic, clear soft drink plastic bottles. The ubiquitous type shown in the pic seem to be common to many brands.

Cut off the top section with the lid, below the flat washer bit and then sand/grind/cut so you have a a flat bottom with a collar at one end and screw top on the other. Do this for two of the bottles but keep the third one whole, this is your water tank.

Next glue the flat end bits of the two removed sections onto the opposite sides, up high, on the whole bottle with some clear bathroom rated silicon or maybe sika if you want.

Ok, now drill out a large hole inside ONE of your glued on pieces into the whole “water tank” bottle . (After removing the cap). Replace the cap . This is your flow control knob/air venturi.

Take the cap off the glued fitting on the opposite side and IN THE CAP lid drill a pattern of holes I used a 2mm drill and five holes as shown . This is your shower head and the fitting is just a place to store it onboard and hold one side of your hanging cord.

USE:
Before your sailing trip fill the bottle with fresh water at home. You can then carry SODBOSCO in your gear like any other bottle of drink. Just make sure the flow control cap is tight like the water tank cap. When you’re ready to shower, tie a loop of cordage from one side fitting to the other so you can hang it from the boom or some other convenient point above you.

Ok, here we go. Hold bottle upright and swap the water tank screw cap with the shower head screw cap, invert the bottle and then hang it above you. Be careful not to squeeze it while hanging or you will lose water. Stuff all water will leak normally until you slowly unscrew the flow/venturi cap. This will then give you control over the water flow like a regular shower. It’s a nice trickle of water that is surprisingly good enough shower to wash off salt or sweat so you can change or put on dry clobber. You can stop the flow with the control knob any time if you want to lather up first then rinse. The thing actually works.

We’ve used it off grid in our motorhome as well, when we’ve been rationing water and it makes you fresh enough to sleep well. I’ve got it to run at useable flow for a full minute and a half (longer if you don’t screw the control knob out too far) with a 1.25 litre bottle which I found ok. My wife has long hair and finds she needs two tanks full. But that’s the beauty of it, you can just refill using a basic funnel with water warmed on the stove maybe or put it in the sun as you wish to take the chill off. If you boil water add it to cold already in the bottle as this kind of plastic deforms very quickly with very hot water.

Have two, ten even! Try a big 3 litre!!

Anyway this has worked for us ok and costs only 10 cents to make plus a bit of silicon. Now for the ultimate tightwad bit. I discovered you can still get your 10c refund in the “return and earn” machine from the two bottles you cut the caps off. The bar codes are unmolested and they don’t want the caps anyway.

That last bit caused my brother in law to christen me “tightwad of the year.” Try to out-Scott cheapo me will he.

Couldn’t have the thing costing 30 cents!!,

[Andrew]

That SODBOSCO shower looks great Ozzie, have saved your instructions for later reference. Would like to try it out, not too many parts to "break down" and spare parts not a problem

Online browse the aquacubes, the new lithium12v rechargeable ones cost twice that of the old 12V only units (which also have the spigot for dishes, new one lack this). They look bees knees but I'm a bit too short on storage space aboard though.

[Andrew]

Investigated the "Evershower" base pans dimensions. They're 50.5cm x 50.5 cm so would fit into an I563 cockpit floor (about 52cm wide on the flat, 58cm wide between walls which also slope outwards. The max height of its frame is 2.2m, might need the boom topped up. The basepans height is 15cm it could be left stowed under the tiller area with water inside it to solar heat up.?

[Ozzie]

They do look pretty good Andrew and endless . I did have one of those fold flat black solar shower bags but they were pretty heavy when full and needed to be up pretty high. Also mine disintegrated after a while which is a strange attribute for a solar bag

The bottle one is just a convenient short term use thing or good after swimming. When we’re travelling and staying off grid for a while we usually get back to a van park after a week for a nice hot shower. The little motorhome has an internal shower and long range tanks but when you’re using it for drinking cooking washing up and shower it goes fast. The bottle one just helps to extend it a bit if you need to.

After the last swim for the day on the boat we like to take a fresh water rinse even if we’re not staying. Makes the rest of the day much better. I’m too old and cranky to sit around in wet swimming clobber

Interesting that the bottle flow works reasonably well which probably means we waste a lot of water at home in our regular shower. Still it’s one of life’s luxuries, a nice long and hot shower. Be interested to see what others do

[Ozzie]

Speaking of simplicity Andrew , I thought as a stove aficionado you might find this Aussie invention on YouTube interesting. It’s a super simple refinement of the soup can alcohol stove of which there are a thousand designs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcUKaHoYEUU

[Andrew]

Thanks for the vid, "simon's soup can stove". It's always interesting watch guys invent or adapt things on u-tube (watching a few van and 4wd shower vids too)

Simpilcity is the key, I'm going to try my old "flexitub" as a shower water recycling catcher. It's strong enough, big enough to stand up in and fits aboard. (Theyre $4 at kmart, so got a couple of spares. one for gardening , other for my boat yard. They can also double up as dirty clothes bins, or laundry washing tubs)

Even so, went to Tentworld and had a really good look at the "Evershower", they're well made and the base is super solid plastic with 2 drain bungs (one at side and other thru floor) ahh the temptation..https://www.tentworld.com.au/buy-sale/e ... te-tent-V2

But then succumbed, bought a Trangia 25 on special ($120) (on the wish list for years..best for 2 or 3 really hungry people)

[Andrew]

Back to simplicity,

I did the bucket bath vs 12v shower comparison test (in back yard, 32C, windy and muggy) speedos and travel towel, plugged into Terias 12volts.

For the hot water heater used my Trangia 25 1.75L pot of about 1.6L water with meths burner.

First was the 12v shower https://www.tentworld.com.au/buy-sale/p ... zYEALw_wcB with the flexitub (recirculation) which catches >80% of the shower water to recirculate (without a hoop screen). It worked and is luxurious but takes awhile to rig up and uses 10-15 or so litres of water (to get the pump submerged enough) also needs about 3L of hotwater.

Then the 9L black heavy duty B's bucket ($10) with kmart $3 cup. It uses about 1/3 the water, one or 2 cups (strategically pour into hair) enough to wet down body for soaping. Only one pot needed for hot water. It's about 10x faster to set up. The 9L bucket is smaller than the usual bucket (12L?) and stows far easier in the locker.

Conclusion. The bucket bath wins hands down for a small cruising TS like Teria. It's not as luxurious but very efficient. The 12v shower might be great for long roadtrips with plenty of tap/creek water at campgrounds, shower tent, and use a more powerfull heating stove/ big billy (bottle gas or shellite), that's what it was designed for. The recirc tub does increase water saving allot and extends shower times by multiples.

Onboard going to stick with the bucket (might use the T25's gas burner to heat water 3x faster than meths, ~3mins vs >10mins)

[Geoff]

Thanks Andrew,

That's beaut mate. Love the real world comparison.

Great thread, thanks to you and Ozzie for the input.

[Ozzie]

Good comparison Andrew. I agree the big thing is speed of getting your water hot. I think if we are overnight we’ll have the explodo butane for use in the cockpit on board for bbq and water heating. Use the metho in the cabin.

As I’ve mentioned before it’s a shame you can’t tap into the heat exchanger used to cool the outboard. The cooling water exit is always pumping out nice warm water, unfortunately salt.

I’m sure this thread will generate a lot of hits beyond our little patch. There are more diy threads for stoves than just about anything else and this is associated with that .