You don’t want the bottom of your boat to look like this. Trust me. It’s slow, the engine overheats, and your depthsounder won’t give accurate readings.
But if you’re cruising in out-of-the-way places, there may not be a diver to clean it for you. Or you may prefer to spend your money on other things. For whatever reason, someday you may have to clean the bottom yourself.
I wrote this article for Cruising World, which published it as “Scrubbing Up, In the Water” in Septemer 2006. While it’s not directly related to the galley and hence a little off-topic for The Boat Galley, I’m hoping you’ll still find it useful. Don’t make the same mistakes we did!
If you want to download the PDF, be sure to use the download link below, not the PDF button at the top of the article — the one at the top will just make a PDF of this introductory text, but won’t give you the real article!
The one comprehensive galley reference needed aboard every boat
Excellent article. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing!
Paul — Good idea, you could probably also take a file to the corners.
Great article! Thanks!
I’ve found these to be great from cleaning the prop and shaft. I find them with plastic handles for around $5 and they are good for one or two uses. It is handing having two tools in one. http://www.amazon.com/Hobart-770102-Scraper-Handled-Carbon/dp/B002ACOXUY/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1350252375&sr=8-10&keywords=scraper+wire+brush
I’m fortunate that my husband loves doing the bottom cleaning, we’ve never used a diver. He also swears by the kind of combo scraper brushes that Allan Cobb recommends in his post, we usually get ours at Harbor Freight.