When the housekeeping departments of their high-end clients enquired about training on how to clean and maintain the yacht interiors, Barcelona-based marine servicing and cleaning products distributor, Almar CN contacted Prochem to provide the service.

In addition to supplying high-end cleaning solutions, Almar CN is a leading manufacturer and repairer of custom textiles including covers for lifeboats and deck furniture and crew uniforms for the mega-yacht market.

Sales manager Helen Verron together with Prochem Europe sales manager Phil Jones, set to task devising three dedicated crew training sessions based around specific client needs tackling wool, silk and bamboo carpets and fabrics.

The presentations, three events over two days, were held on-board two vessels as well as ashore at Port Tarraco in Almar’s home city attended by over 50 crew members from several different vessels including the 124ft ‘Katara’ (below).

Phil and Helen provided a detailed understanding of which Prochem chemicals to choose and how they work, the benefits of the wool and silk fibres and how to care for them, and finally hands-on stain removal based around the usual suspects (coffee, red wine and curry spills) but also including the outcome of guests yet to find their sea-legs!

Top of the agenda and of most interest to the crews (and one captain who sat in), was the Prochem C802 Fiberdri® dry compound cleaning system.

The ease of use of this low-moisture cleaning maintenance system was obvious when it comes to dealing with the very delicate carpet fibres in use on board many super-yachts.

WoolSafe-approved, Fiberdri is a specially formulated, high quality dry cleaning compound and spill absorbent for carpets and rugs.

It contains biodegradable ingredients, a pleasant fragrance and is designed to absorb soil and moisture, allowing carpets to be used immediately after the cleaning procedure. That’s ideal for when you need rooms to be put back into commission quickly.

Fiberdri is applied and gently brushed into the carpet (especially on silk) fibres and allowed to absorb soils back into the compound. It is then left for between 30-40 minutes before being vacuumed away, therefore removing the soiled compound.

Two other products which raised interest at the presentations were A217 Ultrapac Renovate and E400 Red Rx.

Vessels’ fabrics and carpets suffer from carbon filtration marks (or draught marks) due to engine carbons; air moving through the vessel carries carbons that deposit on the fibres and fabric coverings of deck furniture.

When A217 Ultrapac Renovate is sprayed on, it releases the carbon contact to the fabric and can then be rinsed through with a hot water extraction machine with B109 Fibre & Fabric Rinse.

Red Rx was hailed as the saviour for the housekeeping crew as it is designed to remove red food drink colourings, such as red wine, which was named as the biggest problem.

If the red wine colouring remains following treating with B144 Stain Pro, then an application of Red Rx may help to release the colour. It can be used either ‘cold’ by just applying it to the stain and rinsing out, or ‘hot’ by using the heat-transfer method (see below).

Seeing is believing: these treatments impressed the crews attending the courses – Phil and Helen were suitably congratulated!

For more details, see the stain removal section on the Prochem website – “Cleaning Technical Help Guides”.