Hasta La Ideas

During my backpacking days, like many others I carried a bungie cord to use as a mini clothesline. It worked okay, and lacking a certain amount of imagination, I couldn’t have envisioned an improvement.

Little did I know a superior travel clothesline had been designed decades ago. In the 1940s, engineer and inventor Lloyd G. Copeman, who traveled frequently, made a portable clothesline for himself. Copeman braided together three strands of surgical tubing, attached to nylon loops at the ends. The latex allowed his clothesline to stretch up to seven feet, while the braided arrangement allows one to affix clothing without needing a clothespin.

That last part is particularly clever. I never carried clothespins, and I’m sure few other backpackers do; so what happens is you throw, say, a soggy pair of socks over the bungie. Now only one-half of one side of the sock is exposed to the sun, and because the sock is folded over the line, the inside surfaces dry a lot slower than the outside surfaces. Particularly when backpacking, you don’t have all day to wait for things to dry. Copeman’s design obviates the need to fold things over the line, as you can just pinch a corner of your garment into the braids.

Copeman’s Flexo-Line Travel Clothesline has been in production since 1945. It weighs just an ounce, will stretch to seven feet, and can support up to 12 pounds of wet clothing. It retails for $15.