Over the past year, I’ve had to adjust to how to pack and organize on a boat for three people. Having a 1:1 ratio of boat to cabin was definitely been a luxury, so moving to having three people on a two cabin boat has been an adjustment.
Last summer I first tried to organize with fabric boxes, but have since learned it’s not the best approach for what I need right now. How to pack and then unpack isn’t simple, and then how to organize on the boat to maximize the use of space. Plus, the added bonus of having a toddler reach places where you’d rather they not. Dumping fabric boxes is apparently great fun for a toddler, but not so much fun when trying to keep your boat organized.
I did some browsing on how to tackle my challenge of how to pack and organize on a boat with additional bodies, and I found packing cubes. I purchased a couple packing cubes to test out the theory and I’m sold! Packing with cubes help to stop overpacking, and streamlines unpacking and organizing on the boat. With packing cubes you don’t have to unpack, you can simply organize the cubes on the boat.
Packing cubes area a great way to maximize the use of space on a boat. You can take a shelf where you would have typically piled up clothes, where now you can pile up packing cubes and store more clothes, as well as kitchen and bathroom linens. I have some storage along the sides of my v-berth, and the packing cubes easily let me store more clothes in the space I could otherwise, and if we hit a wave and things fall out it’s easy enough to just put the bags back!
You can find lots of great options for packing cubes on Amazon, but if you look a little further at Ikea, they have a great option at a fraction of the cost. I’ve tried both of their options and they work great to organize on a boat!
I love the packing cubes, the time to unpack and organize the boat, and pack up the boat at the end of a trip is amazing. Grab your duffle bag, collect the packing cubes on the boat and you’re done! With a toddler on the boat, the ability to unpack and pack up quickly is priceless. You can find lots of options for types of packing cubes online, but the the relatively inexpensive type from Ikea work perfect to organize on a boat. Happy boating!
