HarryKrause wrote:

A friend at a marina I frequent did not use his boat at all last year
and, in fact, kept it shrinkwrapped.

Well, he opened it up this past week and said when he called me on the
phone: "Phew!"

Stench. No mold though, at least that he can see. It's a nice Bayliner
cuddycabin.

His idea is to prepare a strong Clorox and water solution, one to one,
and slosh it through the bilges for a couple of hours, and then rinse it
out through the transom hull drain. He also wants to flush some Clorox
down the toilet and into the holding tank.

Bad idea. Bleach will knock down the odor for a while, but it won't
clean the bilge, which is what it really needs...

A wet bilge is a dark stagnant pond--a "primordial soup." And it behaves
like one, growing a variety of molds, fungi and bacteria—some that
thrive in dark stagnant water, others that just like damp dark places.
The warmer the weather and water, the faster they grow. Add some dead
and decaying sea water micro-organisms, dirt, food particles, rain
water, wash water, hot weather and humidity, plus a little oil or
diesel, it's no wonder it stinks!

Most people’s approach to bilge cleaning consists only of throwing some
bilge cleaner/and or bleach into that soup when it starts to stink and
calling it done. I’ve never understood why they think that’s all there
is to it. They wouldn’t just add some detergent and bleach to a bathtub
full of dirty bath water, drain it and call the bathtub clean. No one
would ever even think of skipping the rinse cycle in the clothes washer
or the dishwasher...so why would anyone think it’s possible to clean a
bilge without rinsing all the dirty water out of it?

I suspect that laziness may be one of the reasons. The directions on
bilge cleaners may be another; they don’t mention rinsing, only adding
their product and allowing the bilge pump to pump the dirty water
overboard, assuming that anyone smart enough to own a boat would figure
out for himself that the bilge needs rinsing out afterward too. If you
really want to do it right, you need to dry it out completely too... use
a hand pump and a sponge to get what the bilge pump leaves behind, and
leave the hatches open so that plenty of fresh air can circulate in it.
Once a year should be enough to keep most boats smelling fresh (the
best time to do it is in the spring as part of full recommissioning),
although it may be necessary to clean the bilge two or three times a
year in tropical climates.

Bleach should NEVER go down a toilet...it's highly damaging to the
rubber parts in it, and also to hoses. Plenty of clean fresh water
liberally laced with white vinegar pumped through the toilet--disconnect
the intake hose from the thru-hull (close the seacock first!) and stick
it in a bucket of water will accomplish just as much.

All he needs to do to the holding tank is flush it out very thoroughly
with clean fresh water and add the tank product of his choice...I
recommend either Raritan K.O. or Odorlos.

If he still has odor after cleaning the bilge and flushing out the
sanitation system, it's likely that the sanitation hoses have become
permeated with odor. The only cure for that is new hoses.


--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://www.seaworthy.com/store/custo...0&cat=6&page=1