For a short period of time, my first
boat had a "Porta-potti". This is an evil device concocted by a madman to repulse all of mankind. It lasted about two weeks on my
boat.
In the brief period between the porta potti and the next
head I had to revert to the " bucket and chuckit" method...no comment needed here.
In a search for a replacement for the porta potti I stumbled across an old " Wilcox Crittenden " head that I salvaged out of an old
English boat that made it across the pond.
One could never ascribe flowery language to a head, but this particular device was a thing of beauty. Other than the seat and lid (both teak) and bowl (porcelain) , it was mostly all
bronze with a variety of flaps and levers and long handle to send your offering to Davy Jones's locker. No holding
tanks back in those days. For a number of years I was able to find spare
parts for it, but a year came along, when
parts for this magnificent beast were no longer available. For as long as I had it, it worked like a charm. It would groan, gurgle and spit from time to time, but worked flawlessly, if noisily.
I gave it a noble burial at sea.
Boat # 2 had the elecrosan unit....two of them....I awoke one night to a huge explosive sound as the forward head electrosan had exploded under the forward v-berth where it resided.
To say it was a mess would be too simple, but their are no words to describe the cleanup job.
I took the exploded unit to the manufacturer in south
Florida, but they offered little in the way of explanation, recompense or solution.
At the end of the day, I took the second electrosan unit out of the boat as well and replaced both with some or other West
Marine model. They both worked fine, but lacked the ambience of my earlier WC.
Current boat is equipped with
electric macerator pumps and holding
tanks. They
work okay...well, sortoff...they don't like tissue paper very well....but I stumbled across some tissue paper that has aloe vera impregnated in the tissue and the macerators seem to be able to digest this without much problem. Off course, they require a strong
battery to function properly...
I have a very simple
rule on my boat....particularly for
women...I tell them as politely as I can, that if it doesn't pass thru' their body it does not go into the head.
At the end of the day that old Wilcox Crittenden was the best of them all.