cleaning a wooden boat bilge

[novice4]

How do you care for the wood below deck and make the bilge smell clean?

[Jay Greer]

Wipe with a sponge and solution warm water and TSP or Simple Green. Rinse with sponge and clean water.
There are also bilge soaps on the market that can be poured in the bilge at sea and pumped out.
JG

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

I use detergent and a small scrub brush, and scotchbrite. I do mine when the boat is hauled, and I use warm water. I use the biodegradeable stuff if the boat is in the water. I also use an 18 year old for this. :D

[Lew Barrett]

First thought is that bilge cleaning is a great job to give to someone else....say someone who owes you a big favor.
Don't let them use any chlorine based bleach, or any products with bleach as a component as bleach attacks cotton. That seems to be a consistent theme I hear. I've heard several different theories on Simple Green, one of which is that biodegrading products are hard on the cotton as well. I'm not in a position to confirm or deny that, but something to be mindful of is that most boats are caulked with natural fibers. Whatever emulsifier you settle on, Suck it up with a wet dry vac and once you are sure the bilge is oil free, rinse with plenty of water.
My general approach is to use a standard old fashioned dish soap and a lot of elbow grease, but I wouldn't shy away from a good commercially available bilge cleaner if it met rule 1.
Use a wet/dry vac to suck up the solution and dispose of it as you find appropriate. Soap mixed with oil is still oil, in my view. There's no magic to cleaning the bilge, nor anything beyond following common sense rules. If your bilges are really wet and oily, you might suck up the bilge water first, then go on with the cleaning regimen. By the way, this makes a real mess of the shop vac, so don't use your Fein. Buy a Ridgid or the like for the job, and dedicate it as the "boat vac."
Edited to add: If there is a lot of fuel/Diesel/lubricating oil in the bilge, spread out bilge diapers first to pick up whatever petroleum products you can before going on to the cleaning process. A great deal of "the smell" can often be attributed to oil (especially Diesel or kerosene) in the bilge. The bacteria grows in that stuff. Unless you've located and removed the source of that, your cleaning efforts will be wasted down the road. Also, the smell can get into the wood and cotton. That's one reason I like dish soap...it has a nice "covering" aroma. Use lemon Joy and your boat will smell great for awhile anyway....
Lew

How do you care for the wood below deck and make the bilge smell clean?[/QUOTE]

[ 01-12-2006, 12:15 PM: Message edited by: Lew Barrett ]

[Donn]

I use this stuff everywhere on the boat:

<img src= "http://a1672.g.akamai.net/7/1672/116/20060101/www.ritzcamera.com/graphics/boatersworld/products/179810023.jpg">

And ditto the shop-vac, but I'd add that the dedicated boat cleaning vac shouldn't be a 16 gallon job. Too heavy when full.

[Dan McCosh]

I use a low-pressure pressure washer, and almost any mild detergent. Nothing else gets into the nooks and crevices as well.