The Journey -
Fundamental Stuff on Rosy

GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THINGS …..

'The time has come' the Walrus said
'To talk of many things,
Of ships, and shoes and sealing wax
And cabbages and ….'

Well.  No.  NOT kings, but a topic that boaters inevitably get around to discussing, when they finally get down to the bottom of things.  (Hint hint).

Yes, folks.  It goes under many pseudonyms, so lets try some out.

Whoopsies, cack, pee pee, poo poo, plop plops, pooh, number one and number two, lets see a man about a dog, do you want to visit the little room, do one for mummy, do a big one for daddy, have you been today, comfort breaks, rest rooms, john, bog, etc etc.

Just recently I've had several e-mails about such things, so here goes.  A boaters guide to all things lavatorial.

In England (and, I suspect, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) one is not allowed to discharge untreated sewage into inland waterways - except (when last I checked) the Cambridgeshire Ouse, where the authorities have never quite got round to amending (or enacting) the necessary legislation, though they prefer to keep quite about this, and to pretend that such legislation is indeed in force.

Hence boaters in England need to have a system of storing their solid and liquid bodily outgoings in (or on) their boats until they can rendezvous with a suitable sewage disposal facility.

Canals and rivers have such sites at regular intervals, providing not only sewage disposal, but often, also, fresh water supplies.  These sites are generally free to use, and are designed to swallow bucketfuls etc of sewage.  More and more also offer pump-out facilities, though, I believe, at a (modest) price.

Pump-out facilities are also offered by many bank-side, commercial service points ….  at a price.

Toilets on boats in the UK tend to be one of the following:

• A Bucket.  The bucket can be quite smart - made of plastic - that sits in a plastic container which incorporates a lid and a plastic seat.  This is what Rosy has.  Use of clever blue (or environmentally friendly green) liquids removes all smells.  Even so, unfortunately (?) we are so far removed from our basic animal heritage that many folk find it hard to come face to face with their own bodily out-goings hence …
  
  
• The Porta-Pottie.  There is a brand called a Porta-Pottie, though the name is almost a generic term for the offerings of other manufacturers.  It has two, inter-locked halves.  The performer sits on the upper half, whilst the exiting material drops through to an enclosed box below.  Although the unit is self contained, the classier models incorporate a flushing mechanism, so that any not-very-well-aimed debris can be flushed away.  The lower box, containing the unwanted bodily out-goings can be detached, and poured away through a hole revealed by undoing a screw cap.  The fatal flaw in the early models( that caused an unseemly blow back situation, thus drenching the emptier) (to the delight and entertainment of onlookers) has been remedied by the provision of a second, smaller screw cap that, when undone, acts as an air vent.  Nervous boaters acquire a spare lower half of the unit, as nothing is more certain to ruin a happy holiday than an overfull loo and, hence, nowhere to GO!!

I've never been called upon to empty a Porta-Pottie, so I've never learned the secret of what one does with the upper half of the device whilst one is away emptying the lower half.

Anyway, apparently, this was all too much for that less hardy breed of traveller, the caravaner.  Hence …

• The Cassette Toilet.  This device is roughly similar to the Porta Pottie, but it is placed in the caravan against an outside wall, where a little door is constructed.  The emptier goes outside the caravan, and opens the little door.  The bottom (Ho!  Ho!) half of the toilet is then removed for emptying.  Hence the operation of removing the sealed box of whatsits takes place outside the living area, rather than inside it, as with the Porta Pottie.

Things are bit different on a boat, where holes in the side of the hull are not thought to be a good idea, as they let water come into the boat.  Hence the cassette is placed against an interior partition, or arranged so that it can be removed in the bathroom.

Personally, as the lower box is sealed, I fail to see the advantages of the cassette over the porta-pottie.  However, as there are more caravanners than boaters, the cassette is getting quite popular.

• Pump-outs.  All this tarry-diddle with carting buckets and boxes of sewage was far too much for some folk, so the pump out was developed.  It looks a bit like an ordinary loo.  Underneath it (and often hidden away under the floor) are a couple of tanks.  The smaller one holds flushing water, and the second one holds sewage.  Electric motors and (if you are lucky) a macerator help to pump flushing water through the toilet, and ensures that toilet paper (etc!!) is shredded before going down to the holding tank.  A skin fitting on the outside of the hull allows a tube to be connected up, that will enable a pump-out operation to be performed.

AT SEA

In the UK, sea-going craft still tend to use ordinary marine toilets, whereby sea-water is used as the flushing medium, and the sewage is pumped and flushed directly into the sea.

As I understand it, this is NOT so in the USA, where inshore craft are required NOT to discharge sewage directly overboard.  I guess that this is what has led to the development of simple valve systems, that allow the sewage either to be pumped directly overboard (as in a standard marine toilet) or to de diverted into a holding tank for subsequent discharge at a suitable disposal point.

EUROPE INLAND WATERWAYS

In most of Europe, craft are still pumping their sewage directly overboard.  Last I heard, France had 2 pubicly (Ho!  Ho!) available pump out stations.  There are rumours that some of the larger hotel and trip boats use storage tanks and have pump out facilities at their bases.  In Germany, some of the boat clubs have pump out facilities.  I guess that in years to come the European regulations will be tightened up and sewage will have to be stored on board until a suitable disposal point is reached.

The old French peniche had a very cunning loo.  A tube, some 18 inches in diameter, was welded to the bottom of the boat (such that its bottom end was open to the water).  At the top end there was a lavatory seat!

Meanwhile, UK inland craft heading for Europe need to be prepared.

There is not much one can do with the sewage, except to dump it overboard.  Into the canal.  Don't feel too bad about this, as everybody else is doing the same thing.  Which is one reason why I don't go swimming in the canals.  Though, in point of fact, I don't ever recall sighting either toilet paper or any bobbers or floaters in the cut.

I try to empty my bucket every day.  Most Brits with a holding tank, and no diverter, carry self pump-out equipment, and use it every two or three days.  Many Brits who are long term European boaters have installed straightforward marine toilets.

Readers of a nervous disposition should now cease reading, and go and do something else.

There is also a thing called a Biolet - a biological toilet.  One uses it, and every few months removes some tilth that is revered by gardeners - especially rose growers.  It is said to be pongless.  The cheapest model is stand alone.  The more expensive ones need a small electric motor.

More information is at: biolet.com

A very helpful site is at boatbuilding.com, especially the section on Marine Sanitation - Facts v Folklore.  They stress the need for holding tanks to be aerated - otherwise a nasty niff is pretty much inevitable.

Do also look at bumperdumper.com - I'm sure it could be adapted for boat use.

Whilst we are talking about such things …

As a child born during WW2, my early acquaintance with matters lavatorial was far from positive.  Wartime shortages continued for some time after the war, and these shortages included lavatory paper.  Our work-around was the task of tearing up the daily newspaper (appropriately, The Daily Telegraph, as it happens) into suitably sized sheets.  When the shortages finished, the situation was none too better as one was faced (as it were) with the dreaded Izal.  This strange stuff had zero absorbent qualities.  It was shiny on one side, and rough on the other.  The rough side ripped ones delicate bits, and the shiny side slipped over that which it was meant to remove - without removing it.

Most households switched over to the softer toilet tissue when it became available, though the early brands were very prone to the dreaded 'break-through' - a situation which has left a permanent mark on me, since I would now never dream of using a single sheet, but always use the 'two folded into one' technique.

The Army continued to provide Izal in its toilets up until the 1980's.  Indeed, I was much involved in military logistics in Cyprus at the time of the change-over from hard to soft paper, and it turned out to be a considerable logistic problem.

The brains at the top in the MoD (Ministry of Defence) finally agreed to the change (though I guess that they had been using the softer stuff at home for years).  They naievly thought that one roll of the new soft stuff was equivalent to one roll of the old hard stuff.  So, without any warning, instead of receiving 5000 rolls of the hard stuff each month (or whatever the number was) we got 5000 rolls of the soft stuff.

Unfortunately …

• The number of sheets per roll of the hard stuff is very much greater than the number of sheets per roll of the soft stuff.
  
  
• The soft stuff provided was not of the highest quality, and was prone to break-through, so the number of sheets used per go doubled.
  
  
• The idea of liberating the hard stuff from the military loos in the offices and barracks, for private use at home, had, for obvious reasons, only occurred to deviants and the especially stingy.  However, the soft stuff was very much more attractive.  The end result was that a month's worth of toilet paper was used in less than a week.  Imagine entering a loo, in great need, and finding no paper there, nor in the one next door, nor …

It was a very turbulent time.

Talking of such things … I believe that Ghandi's first acquaintance with toilet paper occurred when he got on a liner to come to England where he was to go to University.  He was horrified by these little bits of paper, having grown up using water to wash things clean.

During my time in Arabia, I got used to using the water treatment whenever possible.  It is both gentler and cleaner, though it gets a bit complicated in European dress - i.e. trousers.  I never really enjoyed the squatter loos, as one needs a lot of practice to get the technique right.  How be-trousered French men cope with the footprint loos, I do not know.

Incidentally, I have it on good authority that men in traditional, pastoral societies squat down to pee.  Standing up to pee is an indicator of 'progress'.

And finally - the aqua-crap.

This is performed whilst the crapper is immersed in water, and I bring it up as a service to all those who have been on a beach, and who need to GO!!!

The technique is:

1. Enter the water until one is nearly out of ones depth.  It is advisable to be wearing only swimming trunks (males) or bikinis (females).
2. Now, remove the swimming trunks/bikini bottom.
3. If there is any current flowing, face into it.
4. Adopt a position in the water with your bottom as far behind you as possible.
5. This is the difficult bit.  RELAX.  The problem to overcome is to persuade your sphincter to relax enough to let things OUT, whilst it wants to curl up tight so as not to let the water IN.  It can be done - believe me!!

It is possible that at this point, you will realise the significance of items 3 and 4 above.  The problem is that the buoyancy of that which comes out varies depending on your diet.  Luckily, normally, they are all sinkers and, hence, are seen no more.  However, we need to be aware of the possibility of bobbers and definite floaters, as we want them to surface behind us.  If you feel one rolling up your stomach, you need to act quickly, as it will arrive at your nasal level in a surprisingly short space of time.

The other possibility, especially if you've been going hard at strange foreign foods, is that you will have a major anal eruption, in which case, stay facing into the current and start swimming hard.  The big brown cloud is not to be messed with.

I think we had better stop there.

Toodle pip!!

Bill