At one time on a long overseas posting the RN would employ “dhobi wallers” to do all the ships washing My experience with doing laundry at sea comes from time in the Merchant Navy where some Royal Navy expressions were in common use. For some reason engineers in the MN wore white overalls, which became very “mankey” when worn below. The solution on how to clean them was to put them in a galvanised bucket, add a little soda and then put them next to an auxiliary steam pump with the drain pipe at the bottom of the bucket. With the drain valve cracked open the agitated water would clean the overalls by the end of a watch – all old oil and dirt coming out over the side of the bucket and down to bilge – hang them over the hand rails by the exhaust trunking and they would dry out in time for your next watch. Getting overalls clean on ships at sea with no steam in the engine room is another problem. From my experience hanging them out the porthole on a length of rope is a very bad idea.
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