Ever since we bought our boat back in 2020, we have been living with these ugly white marred spots on our cabin sole. We bought our boat out of charter, and while it needed a lot of upgrades, for the most part the inside looked pretty good cosmetically except for these blasted spots. Off and on for the last two years, I have unsuccessfully researched a way to the repair the floor. I wondered if I could stain the spots? Would that look worse than white spots if the stain did not match or would a stain even stick to the floor? As our floor was laminate, it could not be sanded and refinished. So that was not a solution and replacing the floor was not an option for us at this time. I could not find an answer to the problem.
So basically, I covered what I could with rugs, and tried to ignore the rest. These white spots appeared when water was left sitting on the floor too long. This seemed crazy to have a floor on a boat which was non-tolerant to water, but that was the case!
I confirmed the cause when the other day a soft sided ice chest was set on the floor for several hours and the condensation left another white spot! Thus, once again I began researching for a solution to repair the marred floor.
This time I tried searching within the Facebook group, Women Who Sail, because they were good about giving advice without being snarky. Lo and behold, I found another person with the same issue. This person was given the advice of putting mayonnaise on the spot for 15-30 minutes and then wiping it clean. According to the site, mayo is a great furniture polish. It worked for the person on the post. So I thought, “What do I have to lose?”
However, I have to tell you I was very skeptical, because some of the spots had been on the floor for over two years! I did not think that letting some mayo sit on the spot and wiping it up would do anything, but I tried it nevertheless!
Here is the results.
The mayo trick seemed to have worked! The spots were gone!
Yet, I was still skeptical. Would they reappear when I cleaned the floor? To test this, I used the mayo on a few more spots. Then, I got out my swifter wet and went to town cleaning the whole floor to assure all the mayo was gone. There was NO change. The white spots had disappeared!!!
Now, my floor looks almost like new as I treated every white spot I could find. Whether the spots will reappear in time as the “polish” wears off, I have no idea. It has been about a week now, so only time will tell.
Nevertheless, if they do reappear, another mayo treatment is very simple and I will be happy to reapply when needed.
I will update this post, if I ever see the spots again! So stay tuned!
By the way, you might notice that the blog has received a makeover. Thanks to a friend and fellow cruiser who is website savvy, the blog got an upgrade. I hope you will like the new look and find it easier to navigate! Check out the homepage: Daggers Down Sailing Saga
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Also, if you have found another solution that works with these water spots on laminate cabin soles, please leave your ideas in the comments or even if you have used the mayo trick, let me hear from you!
