I don't know why, but it took me a while to get round to trying the Gill Quick Dry Towel. Maybe I'm a traditionalist when it comes to bathing, but while I've cheerfully ditched my “old-fashioned” sweaters in favour of more technical garments, I was somehow reluctant to swap my trusty towel for a sheet of micro-fleece.
However, it only took one shore-side shower to convert me! The first thing you notice about the Quick Dry Towel, which costs £20, is how small it packs. It opens up to a generous 90 x 150 cms, easily as big as a standard bath towel, but rolls away into a compact mesh carry-bag about the size of a can of baked beans. So it slips neatly into the wash bag.
In practical grey, it claims to be super-absorbent, lightweight, quick-drying - with an anti-bacterial finish to stop it getting smelly. All very good things to be. But does it dry you, too? Yes, it does, extremely well. It feels a bit odd, when you first start using it, because it doesn't feel quite how you expect a towel to feel - a bit more like a chamois leather, perhaps. But it certainly does the job.
And its real advantage isn't the light weight - although that might be appreciated by some pedantic racing skippers - but its speed of drying. Hung up in the cockpit, the towel dried seemingly instantly in sunshine, and was soon ready to be packed away, aired and ready to use again. Anybody who has taken a towel still damp from yesterday ashore for a shower (and that surely is everyone who has ever gone cruising in the UK climate) will really appreciate this.
The quick dry towel doesn't take up much room in a kitbag, either, which could be a big benefit when packing to fly to a charter holiday, for example.
My only complaint about the towel, really, is that it comes in only one colour: grey. Practical it might be, but what if all the crew decide to get one? How can you decide whose is whose when they're all airing on the lifelines? You might not want to share a towel with your shipmates!
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It makes a lot of sense to use the technical fabrics developed for sailing kit for other on board applications. How about quick-drying (and therefore more readily washable) microfibre teatowels and table cloths, too? All in all, the Gill Quick Dry Towel is ideal for life on board.
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