Stop Noisy Glasses on the Boat

If you feel irritable underway, you might be wondering how to stop noisy glasses on the boat. It’s a problem you probably never had when living ashore–glasses clanking in the cupboard.  But once you move aboard and leave the dock, it sure is noticeable.

We certainly found it frustrating when we moved onto our first boat, Que Tal. With any sort of wave action, the glasses in our overhead wine glass rack as well as those in one of the cupboards would make this click-click-click noise.  Annoying any time, but enough to drive me nuts on passage when I was trying to sleep when off watch. As Dave would tell you, it’s a short drive.

Trying to Stop Noisy Glasses on the Boat

I tried putting non-skid in the cupboard. But that did nothing to stop the tops of the glasses from rocking into one another.  Then I stuffed rags and can coozies in all the spaces.  That worked, but made it a bit of a pain every time I actually wanted to use a glass.  And I hadn’t found a solution to the wine glass rack, which was the bigger problem.  Plus, the plastic glasses were getting really scratched up where they were hitting each other.

When we had bought the boat, I noticed that the previous owners of our boat had left a bunch of terry cloth hair ties hanging on a hook in the galley.  I had no clue why they were there and made a mental note to stick them in with some others I had.  But with everything else involved in moving aboard and learning a new way of life, I never got around to it.

The Solution

About 3 months later, we made our first overnight passage.  As I lay down to get some sleep after my watch, I heard the distinctive click-click-click.  I swear, it got louder by the minute.  I finally couldn’t take it any longer and got up to find some way to stop the clicking, muttering all the while.  Just as I was reaching up to take the glasses out of the rack and dump them in the sink with some towels for padding, my eyes fell on those hair ties.

Suddenly it dawned on me.  Eight hair ties, eight wine glasses hanging and clanking.

I put one of the hair ties around the widest part of each of the glasses and had instant silence. They were the perfect size.

And when I looked at them at the end of the trip, intending to take them off, I realized that the hair ties didn’t look bad.  I had my solution, and the ties stayed on glasses all the time except when I was washing them.  I left them on, but around the stem, when we were using them to tell our glasses apart, as simple wine charms!

Buying Supplies

There are all sorts of suitable hair ties available at any Wal-mart, Target, discount store or pharmacy.  The best types are ones made of velour (Amazon), waffle weave or microfiber, all of which won’t scratch plastic (Lexan) glasses either.  The ones that are just an elastic band don’t work as well, because you have to be careful to place them very exactly at the widest part of the glass.

In larger multi-packs at discount stores, these generally cost only about 50 cents each, although I’ve seen the same ones priced much higher when sold individually.

Cruiser Suggestions

Boat Galley readers have found other solutions that work for them. Jenn and Sue both recommend stubby holders (what we call coozies in the United States; can holders). This can work if your glasses are the right size because coozies only stretch so far.

Cathy and Christopher recommend using old socks. If your glasses are behind closed doors, you don’t have to worry about how it looks. And it’s one way to keep old socks out of the landfill.

If you have enough of them, Akira recommends silicone bracelets. They cost more than scrunchies. But some people end up with a bunch of them.

Which ever method works for you, will allow the boat to rock you to sleep in silence . . . you did get that halyard tied off, didn’t you?

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