washing down

[ben bryant]

we used to call washing down sugying ??? how did we spell it

[Keith Tindell]

soogy , and the famous Tepol liquid.

[Ivan Cloherty]

we used to call washing down sugy???

WHY ? they were two completely different things

Washing down was hosing down the decks, bulkheads, deckheads with saltwater

Soogy was cleaning the bulkeads/deckheads internal and external with soap and water, plus anything else that needed cleaning, bridge front, funnel, masts, lifeboats and davits and anything else on deck, engineroom, accommodation etc. One of you would soogy with the solution and the another would wash off with freshwater, if I remember rightly the solution we used was teepol. Passing through Panama we'd soogy and wash the whole vessel with fresh water from Gatun Lake whilst waiting our turn for the locks.

One of the great pleasures after leaving port was washing down to get rid of all the dirt and debris accumulated whilst in port and get your vessel clean and shipshape again

[j.sabourn]

Previous to teepol was soda used to play havoc with any new cuts on hands . JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

As you say John Teepol was the new-by stuff. I learned on Soda ash, and god help you if you got it up the nose. Remember leaving Swansea with a sling loads of timber on deck ready to go over the side, as we passed the place where we used to go on holidays we started to sling it over the side and I was hoping my Dad was waiting on the beach, no such luck. I wonder how much of a fine there would be for doing that now.
Des

[j.sabourn]

Today and yesterday for that matter, to emulate seafarers shore people used to display all these fancy knots ,bowlines , double sheetbends , sheepshanks ,clove hitch’s and try to impress people by hanging them up in their shop widows for sale to a bemused public. When in fact I found the most commonly used knot used at sea especially for heaving old dunnage. And broken spar ceiling out of holds when cleaning , was the old trusty timber hitch which would find hard to describe elaborate but almost foolproof. Especially when backed up with a half hitch. Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

When in Durban shore side cleaners came to clean some parts of the accommodation for both crew and bloods.
Brought their own cleaning gear, but not sure what the cleaning material was.
It stunk to high heaven, you could ride a bike down the smell, but it brought the vinyl floors up great

[Ivan Cloherty]

And broken spar ceiling out of holds when cleaning , was the old trusty timber hitch which would find hard to describe elaborate but almost foolproof. Especially when backed up with a half hitch. Cheers JS

Remember showing some scaffolders the timber hitch and half hitch method at one time as I was walking past and they were having some difficulty get their poles up (now! now!) there are ladies present!

[Tony Taylor]

WHY ? they were two completely different things

Washing down was hosing down the decks, bulkheads, deckheads with saltwater

Soogy was cleaning the bulkeads/deckheads internal and external with soap and water, plus anything else that needed cleaning, bridge front, funnel, masts, lifeboats and davits and anything else on deck, engineroom, accommodation etc. One of you would soogy with the solution and the another would wash off with freshwater, if I remember rightly the solution we used was teepol. Passing through Panama we'd soogy and wash the whole vessel with fresh water from Gatun Lake whilst waiting our turn for the locks.

One of the great pleasures after leaving port was washing down to get rid of all the dirt and debris accumulated whilst in port and get your vessel clean and shipshape again

I still use Teepol today, its a bit pricey but well worth it for all sorts of applications.

[Johnny Kieran]

The only kind of stuff I remember using was "sugar soap". It was a white-ish block of some kind of gritty stone, or soap. Also think the cleaning process was spelt "soogee"? but of course I could be wrong, it's been a long time.