Calypso spent many years at a slip in Stamford, CT within sight of the NYC skyline and a mile or so from I-95.  Her lines had a nice pollution black tinge to them.  Last year we had minimum commissioning time (and the boat was 250 miles away) so I left them alone. This year I have some time to get things really shipshape.

I read a number of articles about cleaning lines in the clothes washing machine and decided to take the plunge.  There are some warnings around about doing damage to lines or the machine.  I minimized this by using our front loader, tightly coiling the line and bagging it in a pillow case with knot tied in the end to keep the line in.  For soap I used a normal dose of Tide HE and a few tablespoons of Oxyclean.  The line escaped the pillow case a few times but this is not an issue in the front loader.

The results are fantastic.

Before

Much Improved