Camco 43512 RV Mini Dish Drainer & Tray, Black

Anyone who's washed dishes in a small galley knows the real problem isn't the washing. It's where everything goes to dry. Counter space is precious in an RV or on a boat, and a full-size dish rack eats all of it. That's exactly the gap the Camco 43512 Mini Dish Drainer fills. It's sized small on purpose, made to fit most RV sinks and plenty of compact boat galley sinks too.

The trick here is the tray. It's a sloped drainer tray that catches the runoff, so water drains away from your dishes and off the counter instead of pooling around them. When you're done, that same tray flips over and snaps on top of the rack as a lid. So the whole unit closes up into a tidy package you can stash in a cabinet or a drawer. On a boat that matters even more. Loose gear rattles and slides when you're underway, and a drainer that packs down flat with its own lid stays put.

Here's how it works day to day. You wash, you rack the dishes, and the slope in the tray carries the water down and out instead of letting it sit under your clean plates. That keeps the counter dry, which is the whole point in a rig where a wet counter means a wet everything-else nearby. Air-drying does the rest, no towel required. Then when the dishes are put away, you pop the tray on top and the drainer disappears into a cabinet until the next meal. It's a small routine, but on the water or on the road it's the kind of thing that keeps a tight galley from feeling cramped.

It's built from black plastic, heavy-duty enough to take daily use and easy to wipe down. The tray lifts out for cleaning, so you're not fighting trapped gunk in the corners. Non-skid feet keep it from wandering around a wet counter or a sink basin. And that's another thing boaters and RVers have figured out. A lot of folks skip the counter entirely and set the whole drainer down inside one side of the sink. It fits, it drains straight down, and it frees the counter completely.

Size-wise it runs about 9.5 inches long, 11.7 inches wide, and 4.75 inches tall, so it's honest about what it holds. This is plates, bowls, cups, and silverware, the everyday load for one or two people. It won't swallow a stockpot or a full family's worth of dinner dishes, and we won't pretend otherwise. For a weekend rig, a couple cruising, or a compact galley where every inch counts, that's the right trade.

One more note on fit. Because it's designed to sit inside the basin as well as on the counter, it plays nicely with both single and split RV sinks. If you've got a divided sink, park it in the side you're not using and wash in the other. If you've got a single bowl, it sits on the counter beside it or drops right in when you need the space back.

Where does it earn its keep? Small travel trailers and truck campers where the whole kitchen is a single counter run. Vans with a two-burner and a bar sink. Center consoles and cuddy cabins with a little galley sink you'd never fit a normal rack near. Even at home in a tiny apartment, the same logic holds. Anywhere the counter is short and the sink is small, a drainer that doubles as its own storage case makes sense. The removable tray also means you can carry the drained water somewhere else to dump it, which is handy when you're dry camping and watching your gray tank.

Camco's been making practical RV and marine gear since 1966, and this is a good example of the simple, does-one-thing-well stuff they're known for. The packaging comes in English and French. There's nothing to install. You set it down and use it. If your galley sink is on the small side and you're tired of a dish rack hogging the counter, this one's an easy call.