By Russ and Tiña De Maris
What’s a blue boy? Well, we’re not talking about silly Cousin Dexter who locked the door behind him when he went out to look at the snow in Minot. Seriously, though, a blue boy for boondocking RVers is probably the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Blue boys are portable waste tanks that allow RVers to leave their rig parked while still getting waste water out to a proper dump station. Dubbed “blue boy” because many commercially produced tanks for this use are fabricated from blue colored plastic. You’ll see a couple of different varieties. Most are equipped with a pair of wheels at one end and a wagon-tongue or draw bar apparatus that allows one to tow the tank behind a vehicle using a hitch ball.
Once at the dump station, one lifts the blue boy, pivoting it on its wheels to dump the tank out through a 3″ port. It’s this same port, in conjunction with an RV sewer hose, that allows you to dump your RV. Here’s how it works:
A sewer hose with a bayonet fitting on each end is connected to the blue boy and to the RV’s dump port. A small cap on the blue boy allows for air to be blasted out as waste is dumped in from the RV. As you would at a dump station, dump the black water into the blue boy first. It’s not likely the portable tank will be big enough to absorb the entire “load” of your black water, you do well to leave a wee bit of head space in the blue boy to allow you to “top off” the tank with gray water, thus rinsing your hose.
The real trick when first learning how to fill a blue boy is to gauge when you’ve enough fluid in the portable tank–and not too much! Icky fluids can quite vigorously blast out of the “air hole,” and create a bit of a mess.
The wheels typically found on blue boys aren’t all that skookum, particularly if you tow your blue boy over rocky ground. Many RVers end up replacing the factory wheels with pneumatic tires from a hardware store. Other RVers simply mount their blue boy on a hand truck (as in used for furniture moving) and tow the hand truck to the dump station. Of course if the distance is large or requires a trip down the highway, you’re better off loading the blue boy on a truck (we prefer using a ramp for this procedure) and driving to the dump station.
You’ll find blue boys for sale at RV part suppliers and on the Internet.
photo credit: on handtruck and on trailer, R&T De Maris
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