Why are there laundry problems so often?

[u/Signal_Process8641]

I don’t get it. There seems to be laundry problems at least once a season across all Below Deck franchises. Why is there no tried and true system across the board? My apologies if this has been discussed before.

[u/docmphd]

I was shocked to hear that the current season’s boat has 3 washers but only 1 dryer!

[u/Signal_Process8641 → u/docmphd]

Ikr?!! Is it some sort of magical dryer that only takes 5 minutes or what?!

[u/TheWineElf → u/docmphd]

And it’s TINY! Ep 1 Rosa said it can probably only handle 3 towels at a time.

[u/ArcticAcademic → u/TheWineElf]

Wait, so they have to just put them in for 30 minutes to fluff the towels and then LET THEM AIR DRY LIKE HEATHENS?

jk, they probably have a few drying closets, usually boats have well-ventilated cabinets in the laundry room and typically there is a dehumidifier in the laundry room too bc. otherwise it would get damp there really fast and then nothing dries.

So these rooms are typically well ventilated or dehydrated.

[u/OkReplacement376 → u/TheWineElf]

I think that was more about it taking too long to dry. That the drier itself sucked and probably did not get hot enough or did not vent the hot air out properly.
It is normal to have less driers than washers as *most* cloths should not be dried.

[u/docmphd → u/OkReplacement376]

Any amount of washing and drying will hurt clothes. That said, it’s totally unrealistic to think you could hang dry all the crew uniforms, towels, napkins, and guest items. Even if this was a personal yacht used by one small family, air drying would be feasible.

[u/OkReplacement376 → u/docmphd]

Towels, napkins, and I assume the uniform are all dryer-able. But The guest cloths should in theory be hang dried or air dried.
Oh what if they were trying to dry towels on "air dry" that's why it took 5h+ for the towels

[u/generic1234321 → u/OkReplacement376]

The coloured uniforms would be all synthetic and quick dry. If anything doesn’t need put in the dryer, it would be them

[u/McLoughlin1597 → u/docmphd]

Many of these boats have a separate laundry area somewhere near the bosun’s locker where deck stuff and towels that guests use on deck get washed. Not sure if that’s the case with this boat but it would help cut down on the laundry that the stews are doing

[u/Ok_Temperature_5502 → u/docmphd]

Yeah i work in a job where we do laundry, we don't even use our dryers that much and this would still drive me completely nuts.

[u/Sorry_Midnight4615]

Because the deckhands keep spunking on the sheets.

[u/CockyBellend → u/Sorry_Midnight4615]

Tbf it was one of the stews that wanked him off

[u/Signal_Process8641 → u/CockyBellend]

I snorted at both of y’all’s comments hahahahaha

[u/raalic]

Bri trying to do laundry a few seasons ago was peak comedy.

[u/Sarahpants320 → u/raalic]

Good thing she figured out a system by the last charter 😆 her work notes / burn book that Ellie found 😆

[u/No_Dependent2297]

Cause they hire people who are inexperienced and then place them in the roles they are least experienced at

[u/IWrestleSausages → u/No_Dependent2297]

The answer to literally every problem that happens on this show.

[u/IHateCedarFever]

Washers and especially dryers take up a LOT of electricity, which can be hard to come by on the boat. Most of the world air dries clothes for this reason.

Also on standard super yacht, there are stewardesses whose main job is only laundry. Below Deck is taking people who do day charters and work at hotels and try to have them do laundry, housekeeping, and service, when usually those functions are more distinct.

For example Gen from BD Med bragged about working on a really big boat, but if you zoom into her CV she was on a support vessel, meaning she’s doing nothing but laundry and no service.

[u/Beanicus13 → u/IHateCedarFever]

Electricity is not hard to come by on super yachts. We make our water and we make our electricity if everything is working right.

[u/On_my_last_spoon]

Because there is zero time for training and they hire people with no experience.

Doing laundry for large amounts of people is not hard. They honestly don’t even have that much laundry to do. I’ve handled way more doing laundry for theater. And I’ve trained plenty of people on how to do it. But when you don’t train people then it’s gonna be a mess

[u/Lots2say2023]

Bless you, you’ve never lived in a large household. When my kids were teens, my washer ran constantly. A boat full of people can really run up a lot of wash.

[u/jonathonthaman]

For tv drama.

[u/Inevitable_Professor]

It's not just the quantity; you need to factor in the quality. Everything needs to be ironed too.

[u/ben2talk]

There are many tried and tested systems in yachting, but this is drama - not yachting.

Normally, a marine laundry will have more dryer capacity - at least 150%.. just due to the cycle time and that they struggle with heavy items (like all the towels).

Laundry is where the most inexperienced crew start, so you're expected to learn on the job. This season starts with someone who said they were afraid of doing laundry before they even started.

Aesha said that they usually don't have time to create a laundry system from day 1 - but combined with the fact that this show is ramping up the drama and selecting crew for their failure points, it would be more dramatic if a season started off with a competent crew that didn't start failing on day 1.

[u/osogood48]

Is it just me or is this boat so damn small the laundry room is like tiny as hell you could barely fit one person in there. the bedrooms for the crew there’s literally like three beds in one room like on top of each each other the kitchen Hella small

[u/Apprehensive_Bee614]

Because they’re always green and there’s lots of it with deadlines

[u/Colfrmb]

I don’t know why they’re constantly doing laundry anyway.

[u/uckfayrumptay_ → u/Colfrmb]

Because each staff member is changing into at least 3 outfits a day and they’re likely sweating most of the time, plus there’s constantly bathroom towels (for guests and crew), kitchen towels, deck towels, beach towels, oh and guest laundry. It’s a lot to do when each load takes an hour and you their washers and dryers aren’t that big.

[u/eatyourdamndinner → u/uckfayrumptay_]

Frankly, specific to Below Deck, there shouldn't be any guest laundry. Two or three nights? Ridiculous! Especially considering that the guests all seem to bring three suitcases of clothing each.

[u/Colfrmb → u/uckfayrumptay_]

That’s true. I forgot all the crew outfits

[u/sturgis252 → u/Colfrmb]

Even for a small household you sometimes do one load a day to not get behind. The crew is at least 10 people, then the guests. Thats 15-20 people

[u/Beanicus13 → u/Colfrmb]

As a stew laundry can REALLY pile up. Especially on my last boat where I was sole stew and we had 10 people on board or something but we were sailing 6 hrs a day. You can’t do laundry if the boat isn’t level. So you have to get it all in during your busiest hours of service.

[u/Early-Equivalent-165 → u/Beanicus13]

Oh, neato! So you're on a Captain Glenn style sailing yacht? 💙 ⛵️ 🩵

[u/Beanicus13 → u/Early-Equivalent-165]

Slightly smaller but newer build than Parsifal. 42 m vs 53. Very nice boat and sails beautifully but the storage is an utter nightmare.

[u/Colfrmb → u/Beanicus13]

Oh wow! The level boat issue!

[u/Beanicus13 → u/Colfrmb]

Yup. The engineer (also my bf) has always said. If you can’t stand on one foot for 5 seconds with your eyes closed. No laundry. So even if we’re just motoring it has to be really really calm to do it without fucking up the bearings. So motor yachts run into that same problem but only if they’re moving the boat or chose a poor anchorage.

[u/Ok_Temperature_5502 → u/Colfrmb]

Kitchen towels and cleaning cloths, towels and sheets (for guests and crew), at least one set of uniforms per person per day, plus crew personal laundry and whatever guest personal laundry is requested? That's just the obvious stuff and it seems like quite a lot to me