SOMETHING NEW ON THE BUCKET LIST

I use a few of the five gallon buckets or pails on board BIANKA. They come in handy for all kinds of things. From holding cleaning solution for washing down the decks to storage of some of my dive equipment. I use one in the sleeping cabin as a storage bucket and  foot rest for tying shoes. I even use a cover from one of these buckets to cover the opening of the mast partner area over the winter.

I've also used a bucket hung from the main halyard to scare birds away when they seemed to have taken to roosting on the boom:

But, the most useful thing I use the buckets for is a quick wash down after a swim. I keep one of these five gallon buckets filled with fresh water in the corner of the stern and use a small container for a quick freshwater rinse after a swim. So I find these buckets very useful on board. They are pretty durable but, eventually one might crack or I lose the cover and it has to be replaced.  So earlier this spring I went online to look for a replacement cover for one of the buckets and I found a few things that improve my use of these ubiquitous buckets on board. First I discovered the Hydrofarm HG5G 5-Gallon Black Bucket. It is not so much an improvement as a change of color but, the ramifications are that the black color warms the water up faster for that after swim rinse.

The next bucket item I found which was a real improvement was Custom LeatherCraft 1140 EasySeat Lightweight Plastic Bucket Seat for 3 1/2- 5 Gallon Buckets:

This allows one to use the bucket as a seat and works very well for that function as well as a cover for the bucket. It also has a very light coefficient of friction so you can sit on it and spin around on the bucket. Very useful when working down low and needing to turn and reach for a tool. The cover is also has grooves so that it drains off any water that falls on it unlike the usual bucket cover.  It also has a very convenient tab on the side that was probably put there so these covers could be hung up for an in store display:

 But, I found it very useful to tie a lanyard to the tab and the bucket so the cover could not be separated and fall over the side. Which could easily happen with the generic bucket cover:

 I like how this cover worked so well I bought a second one to use on a bucket I have inside the cabin. One would think it's hard to improve on the basic five gallon bucket but, in my opinion someone has.

.