Why a superyacht stewardess should NOT flush tampons down the toilet

The menstruation cycle of a woman is a standard monthly occurrence. However, it is not a topic that is readily discussed amongst men, especially not seafaring men.

(Let’s be honest here, it’s not the most delicate subject to talk about, and it does make many people very uncomfortable)

Nonetheless, in the Superyacht industry, it is the engineers (typically men) who have to sort out the problem when women dispose of their feminine hygiene products correctly.

This article will discuss Why a superyacht stewardess should not flush tampons down the toilet.

The “NO tampons in the toilet” instruction came from the engineering department; where the personality characteristics of an engineer varied as much as the oceans themselves.

Some would bark the command… “don’t put tampons down the toilet”, others would approach the subject a little more delicately. However, the message was always the same.

Needless to say, that, throughout my long career as a Superyacht chief stewardess, I always had a mandatory chat with the new stewardesses about not putting tampons down the toilet.

My go-to reason was so that it wouldn’t block the toilet system.

Fair enough, I thought, (I mean, I had not given the subject much more thought than that). It was not until recently when I decided to write about this subject that I wanted to know a lot more. So off I went to ask an engineer, and this is what I found out:

1. A marine toilet is NOT like a standard household toilet.
2. It is a vacuum toilet constructed by the intricate use of smaller pipes with Y pieces, which twist and turn to the yachts specification.
3. The pipes which are used can be 6 times smaller than those used in a private house.
4. At the end of this pipework sits a macerator which cuts the human excrement and toilet paper into smaller pieces which then passes through to a holding tank.

Now, should material other than bodily fluids and purpose made tissue (i.e. toilet paper) be flushed down the toilet and get stuck in the pump, then ultimately this can interfere with the guest’s toilets.

This will depend a lot on the construction of the pipework, but basically, if you flush a tampon down the toilet, which the system can then Not the process, the whole system will need to be shut down until the problem can be resolved.

This will make for a very unhappy boss and guest. Not only that, but your fellow crew member has to then sort out a very unpleasant problem. They will first have to find the blockage, which means opening up the pipework and removing the culprit responsible for the blockage.

Now as you can imagine, the culprit will be used a tampon or too much toilet paper, or other materials such as dirty tissues or other material.
As I mentioned above, each engineer is different, and I have had the pleasure of working with some brilliant personalities and with some undesirables.

One engineer comes to mind; he would bark commands at everyone. Concerning this topic, he said,

“If any of your girls block the system then I will give them the bucket to clean it out”.

To summarise why a superyacht stewardess should not flush tampons down the Toilet:

• A marine toilet is NOT a standard household toilet
• It is constructed with smaller pipes and a lot more bends
• The vacuum system is delicate
• If the pump gets compromised, it does not only affect the crew area; it can also affect the guest accommodation