Why Organize your Boat
If you live in a small space you know how important it is to organize your boat, RV or even a tiny house. When we lived large it wasn’t all that important, but when you live in a small space everything needs to have a home and be kept there when not in use. If you don’t do that, it gets cluttered and claustrophobic very fast.
Hidey Holes Everywhere
What many people don’t realize is just how much storage space there is on a boat. The problem with all of them is getting things in and out of them. Think about the shape of a boat. All those rounded hull edges and straight walls inside mean that there are all kinds of little spaces to hide stuff behind them. While you can get a lot in there, it is never easy to get to them. This is the conundrum of living aboard.
There are things that we just don’t use often, but when you need them, they are important. One of those great examples for us happens to be the blender. While you may think that we have frozen margaritas every day watching the sunset, we don’t really. Interestingly enough, we use the Ninja blender more for breakfast smoothies and applesauce than frozen drinks. (Truth be told, this is more a result of not having ice for frozen margaritas. 😜)
When we need to get the blender out, it means getting down on our hands and knees and removing the Instantpot, the Tupperware and reaching down under the shelf below the silverware draw in the galley to pull out the base for the blender and the proper attachments for the blending container.
It is the same thing we do for every thing we need in the boat. If you get in a hurry and just toss the stuff into the cabinet when done, it will quickly get so cluttered you won’t be able to find anything. We have to be very diligent about this and frankly still aren’t great about it. We end up picking cleaning and organizing days where we redo all of these storage areas.
Keeping similar things together
The first thing we learned is the value of getting all the things out and trying to group together like things. Knowing how much of a similar item you have allows you to pick the storage area that will best fit those items.
For example, we have quite a bit of baking supplies or items you would classify as baking ingredients. Things like sugar, flour, baking soda, cocoa, salt, baking powder, etc. We put all these together and determined that they would fit nicely in short airtight containers on the top shelf in one of the galley seating cabinets. This makes them accessible but not take up valuable space right at the counter where we put the things we use almost daily. We like to label items as well and as you can see in this photo, we have a small labeler that allows us to quickly see what is in the container without having to do a lot of examination.
Keeping things Fresh
We realized how important it is to keep things fresh. When we first moved onto our boat, we stored things a lot like you would in your house. We would have a box of crackers in the pantry, a bag of flour on the shelf, spice packets in a drawer. What we found out was that things don’t last long in the humidity or dampness of the boat air. We needed to come up with betters solutions. After 8 years of living aboard, we have learned a lot about storage containers.
Long term storage – Airtight container
We can now say without a doubt that the best airtight containers we have found are the Lock and Lock brand. We use them for any items that we need to store for a period of time that would be considered a bit ‘longer’. In this definition, I would say anything that will be there for more than a month or so. We use them for all of our baking supplies, sugar packets, we keep spice packets and mixes in them, rice, flour, and even some snacks like dried fruit, nuts or raisins/craisins where we don’t use a package quickly.
One of our favorite starter sets for Lock and Locks are below. They come in all kinds of different types and today you can even get them in glass. We prefer the BPA Free Plastic ones that have a rubber seal in the lid and clasps on all 4 sides of the containers. We also have some round ones that have either 6 or 8 tabs around the edges to seal them well. To provide an example of how well they work, we can keep small sweet and lo packets in there for a year and they don’t clump up. I only wish they made spice containers and salt and pepper shakers 🙂
Mid range storage- Fairly airtight container
We have also learned that we don’t have to store everything in the Lock and Locks. Frankly, they are a bit more expensive than some of the other ‘airtight’ sealing containers. If we have things that will be consumed faster then we put them in less expensive bins. Great examples of this are crackers, chips, and cereal. With 4 of us on board, these tend to be consumed fairly quickly.
We have tried many different brands and types and have found that the ones with a pouring spot or flap rarely keep things fresh. We have found that the ones with the less flexible plastic also don’t seal as well.
Tupperware brand is really good as are a few others. The ones we use quite a bit are these tall oval ones due how well they stack and how they stand in the cupboards. Because most boat cupboards have a lip on the bottom, the tall narrow height of these allows them to easily go in bottom first then ‘tip’ it back so it stands straight up and down. They also come in smaller sizes to allow stacking and in the picture above. While these are very good, they do not keep things fresh as long as the Lock and Locks.
Organizing your Boat and knowing where things are
Once you have determined how much of each kind of item you have and you have figured out what to store them in, it is now time to put it away. This sounds easy but keeping things in a place that makes sense to how often you will use them is critical. For example, when I was on a smoothie everyday breakfast, having the blender and protein powder easily accessible was important.
Today we keep things like rice, beans, quinoa and things that we use frequently in a galley cupboard accessible from just reaching over the table and getting it. We keep things that don’t get used as often deeper in the recesses of cabinets.
To Inventory or not to Inventory
We have been tempted to create an inventory list so that we kind of always know where things are. Doing this would also allow us to do better meal planning and shopping trips but neither of us is organized enough for this to work right now. We want to get there, it just isn’t in us right now. I actually look forward to the day we get that discipline because it would mean that we have a defined shopping list, a place for everything and a more regular and sustainable low-cost food and meal plan. But that is not critical now and we haven’t been “pained” by it enough to force the action.
Organize your Boat with Bins
Because a boat is a constant moving platform, where you put things doesn’t mean that is where they will stay. If you live on a boat, you know everything has what is called a “fiddle rail” and that keeps things from sliding off of flat surfaces. We try to pack the cupboards and shelves full. By this I mean, organize containers so there is no space between the front to back and left to right. This helps keep things in place when sailing.
Using this method also means that you will have to “fill” open spaces on the shelves. We do this with small bins. There are a ton of different bins that can be used for this purpose.
We happen to like the ones that are designed to go on house refrigerator shelves because they are clear and usually have a small handle/opening on the front making it easy to pull out like a drawer to get what you need out of it. In this photo, you can see we have one that has unopened pasta and unopened dried beans in it. This helps keep the other containers from all falling over when sailing and also allows easy access when we need to pull it out of the cupboard. It also allows us to just lift it over the fiddle rail and slide it out 6 inches or so then put it back when done.
Organizing your Boats Spices
The thing I wish we had a better solution for was spices. They tend to clump up in these containers that you buy them in. We even considered keeping them in a large Lock and Lock but that would be a pain to get them out each time we wanted seasoning. We keep spices on a shelf that are easily displayed so we can get to them quickly as we use them often. The downside is we have to bang them on the counter or scrape the seasoning with a fork when it clumps before we can sprinkle it out.
Free Stuff
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Tools and supplies
Tools and supplies we use regularly can be found here:
- Jet Band Saw
- Sanding Tape 120 Grit – 1 inch wide
- Sanding Tape for Spindles (220 Grit)
- Small Sanding Cord for Spindles (150 Grit)
- Screwdriver with nut ends
- Pry Bar Set
- Oscillating Multi-tool (about $35)
- The Best small wood cutting blades
- Great “plunge cutter”
- ABSOLUTE Best metal cutting blade (for cutting bolts, etc.)
- Safety Glasses
- xActo Blade Knife
- Ryobi Variable Speed Jigsaw
Video and Camera Equiptment we use
Video equipment used is: Canon Vixia G40
Our Lifestyle Cruising and living aboard.
See how we go about living aboard and sailing with kids (Grandkids 4 and 12 years of age). We are in the middle of a huge sailboat refit. Our Boat is designed by Bill Garden and built in Taiwan. See how to become a liveaboard whether you stay in a marina or are a cruiser. #boatlife #saillife #SVDreamchaser
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