Beneath the mainsail, which was stored for a few years on the foredeck, the boat had several lines loose on deck. I was very skeptical about the sail’s chances. I was surprised that the algae and moss mostly cleaned right off, but the foot area shredded open.
The lines, as ugly as they look, had better prospects. Steve at Riverbend suggested putting them in the dumpster when he saw them, but instead, I put them through the wash. The problem with laundering anything like this (other than getting caught) is that the lines can get caught up on the washing machine’s agitator assembly and break something, or get abraded and tied in knots.
I sought to avoid this by putting them in some mesh bags, of the variety they pack oranges or potatoes in. Unfortunately I didn’t have a need for large quantities of produce, but I remembered seeing some mesh hampers for sale at the dollar store around the corner. I bought two of these and took out the metal stiffeners and clamps, leaving me with a large mesh bag that could accommodate a few, or perhaps 80′ of what I believe is 1/2 or 5/8″ line.
I used some plastic zip ties to close the top and put these in on the Grunge setting of the washer, which I set to extra large load and added a half cup of bleach on the Warm/Warm setting. A few minutes of agitation and the water was already black. This was exciting! I knew something was going to happen.
After the first cyle I looked in and already the lines were showing a great improvement. By the spin cycle the lines were just slightly damp, and all but the 3/8″ line were very clean relative to their former state. The mesh bag had torn, so I was just able to use the pair of bags one more time by slipping one inside the other.
The experiment was a great success. I should be able to get at least a few years’ use out of each of these.
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- Unfortunately the mainsail had been stored on deck. The Oregon winter started a great crop of moss.
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- Hidden, or protected? Underneath the mainsail were several lines that looked pretty questionable.
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- Another look at the foredeck. Storing lines and sails like this does not just subject them to damage, but it can cause water to collect and pool on the deck, or block normal drainage paths entirely, resulting in mildew, deck rot and damage to the deck.
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- These lines are black and don’t smell very good.
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- An inexpensive mesh hamper – you could substitute an orange mesh sock or a gunnysack.
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- unpackaged, it has some wire forms in place that let it spring into shape. These will need to be removed before washing.
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- here are the frame parts pulled out. each wire is secured in a loop by a metal collar (shown)
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- loading lines into the mesh bag, to be secured with a tye wrap
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- tied up and ready for the plunge!
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- shortly after the washer went into the agitate cycle, the water became black!
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- The spin cycle is already promising, showing the two bags of clean lines.
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- Ultimately I wound up with several serviceable lines. Because I tied knots in the unwhipped ends, fraying was kept to a minimum. I couldn’t really whip them as dirty as they were, but some tye wraps would have been a better idea.