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How to clean a boat—or ten—when time and supplies
are short.
By Skip Reisert — Summer 2005
“The only running water we had access to was dribbling
from the spout in a men’s room sink.”
If you clean your own boat, you know what a daunting
task it is. I’ve known it since I was a kid and started messing around
on the water, and I developed a true appreciation for the aggravation
involved during my 40 years in the high-end automobile and boat detailing
businesses. A few years ago I sold my company, Skip’s Yacht Detailing,
and became a principal at the nationwide firm Nuts & Boats Dockside
Marine Services. I see the worst muck that exists on boats, and my company’s
job is often to get things spiffed up when nobody else can. Believe me
when I tell you that if you think you’ve got boat-cleaning hassles,
you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Take, for instance, the time my team and I had to clean
nearly a dozen boats without running water.
This is no joke. Imagine ten motoryachts from 38 to
56 feet long. They’ve traveled thousands of miles in the middle of
winter on their way to the annual New York National Boat Show. They’ve
been on open trucks from as far away as Florida and Wisconsin, beaten
by snowstorm after snowstorm. They need to be sparkling for the boaters
who will soon be touring them inside the Jacob Javits Convention Center,
but they’re encrusted with ice, snow, salt, sand, and mud. I’m
talking every nook and cranny.
Did I mention that the only running water we had access
to in the convention center was dribbling from the spout in a men’s
room sink? That’s right—my crew of 14 and I had to fill our
buckets paper cup by paper cup.
Oh, and we had just three days.
Our first 19-hour day came and went around 2 a.m. with
little visible progress. A single swim platform took almost two hours;
the first pass at removing the dirt without scratching the gelcoat involved
little more than moving the mud around. During the second day, the crew
was tired and weary. Thoughts of mutiny began to set in. I fed everybody
anything they wanted and prayed things would look better in the morning,
but with just 24 hours until showtime, we’d made only slight progress.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Because
we couldn’t wash the boats, we used all-purpose cleaner/degreaser—but
it is essentially soap, and it leaves a film unless it’s rinsed.
Panic set in once again. I needed a miracle.
After much trial and error, I discovered that a mixture
of two parts water and one part vinegar did the trick. I don’t recommend
this for routine maintenance, but I can tell you that when the show opened,
those ten boats were sparkling even brighter than the eyes of my crewmembers,
who knew the work was finally done.
Now, I hope you never find yourself in the kind of situation
I was in, but just to be safe, here’s what I recommend: Wash your
boat at least every ten days. You may have to get your hands dirty more
often depending on many factors: Is your boat in the water? Near a major
roadway or airport? Rack stored? Indoors or outdoors? Used often? Fished?
Older rather than newer? In need of new gelcoat? In salt water or fresh?
When washing your boat, always start from the top down,
and rinse thoroughly. Do not skimp on water as you rinse, and be sure
not to let the soap dry. I recommend wash-and-wax soap, which adds a thin
coating of wax each time you apply it (whenever you wash your boat with
soap, you remove a bit of wax protection).
Use a soft-bristle brush for smooth fiberglass surfaces,
a medium to stiff brush for nonslip surfaces, and a wash mitt for smaller
areas. Have an all-purpose cleaner/degreaser on hand for stubborn areas
and for canvas, vinyl, and seating surfaces, but use a cleaning agent
such as Soft Scrub or Bar Keepers Friend for nonskid that needs additional
heavy cleaning. The Bar Keepers Friend can be difficult to find in chandleries,
but it works extremely well. Stock up on this powdered cleanser the next
time you’re at a hardware store or restaurant-supply house.
For drying, use an absorber or synthetic chamois as
well as a wide-strap chamois mop, and the water blade.
You’ll be boat-show ready without an ounce of worry.
Skip Reisert is vice president of field service
operations for the Fort Lauderdale-based Nuts & Boats Dockside Marine
Services.
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