Ditch Bag Bottled Water?

[captain465]

Has anyone else considered using small plastic bottels of water as an emergency water supply in a ditch bag?? How long is botteled water good for???? I am in the process of putting together a ditch bag and the commercially available water is very expensive.

[jim_thomsen]

I would use the plastic bottles...just drink them every so often and replace them with new ones.

We also cary a Katadyn survivor-06 watermaker. A little expensive but i don't want to be without water.

[NoTies]

20 litre container with a small air gap will float. We always have one ready to cut free on a bluewater.

[Steve Pope]

Yup the 20l is the way to go maybe even 2 of them on a 10m tether.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by captain465

How long is botteled water good for????

...is two years. Many argue that this is overly conservative.

[tager]

Just use glass bottles.

[Pblais]

Yup the 20l is the way to go maybe even 2 of them on a 10m tether.

Small water bottles really won't last long enough to bother with. General rule of thumb is one US gallon per person per day aboard. In a raft you might cut it back some in the interest of survival, but plastic water bottles really don't last longer than an afternoon. Two 20 liter jugs on a tether is perhaps something close to lasting a while and perhaps beyond one week for two. It takes weeks to starve to death but only about three days to die of thirst. A lot less if you get goofy and start drinking the sea water.

The hand power desalinator is really the thing for any long term survival.

[Cheechako]

yep, 5 gal container near full and ready to release, high visibility yellow maybe.

[rtbates]

Originally Posted by Pblais

Small water bottles really won't last long enough to bother with. General rule of thumb is one US gallon per person per day aboard. In a raft you might cut it back some in the interest of survival, but plastic water bottles really don't last longer than an afternoon. Two 20 liter jugs on a tether is perhaps something close to lasting a while and perhaps beyond one week for two. It takes weeks to starve to death but only about three days to die of thirst. A lot less if you get goofy and start drinking the sea water.

The hand power desalinator is really the thing for any long term survival.

Drinking seawater is not as bad as most folks think, including the 'experts'.

a man survived 63 days on nothing but what the sea provided, including up to 32oz of seawater a day.
Your own urine can be drunk as well. We're talking survival, right?

Scroll down to find
United States Search and Rescue Task Force

[Strygaldwir]

So, the answer is... yes you can use the small bottles. Nothing wrong with them. Just swap them out every six months or so. Even then, it is probably an issue of taste, no safety. You could probably even make you own by boiling the water prior to putting it into your own bottles. I am not certain I'd use glass, unless it was unbreakable.

But! You do want to have lots of water available. The more, certainly the better. Many studies out there, and it is indefinite the amount of water you need to survive. Universal consensus is a MINIMUM is 600 ml per person per day, and this everyone agrees is only enough for base survival in good conditions with a person in good health. Recommendations are generally around 1.5 liters per person per day and go up to about 3 liters a day in most survival conditions.

So given these minimum requirements, it is advantages to have something like 10 liters in a ditch bag and a couple of Jerry cans of 20 liters available on the deck, and hope you can get to them in an emergency situation. The issue becomes one of weight and manageability, as I am sure you're very much aware. The hand operated desalinators are also highly recommended. But, they do not take the place of having adequate storage available. The hand operated units require a lot of energy to produce the requisite amount of water. There may be times you don't have the energy. Thus having a place to store captured rain water is HIGHLY recommended.

I have tried to find information on solar stills, but only found one commercial reference and that did not provide any pricing information. But, If they were reasonably priced, I might put one in my ditch bag.

[Badsanta]

Originally Posted by rtbates

Your own urine can be drunk as well. We're talking survival, right?

I'm not.
I read nothing in your link that covered this. I was always told that urine is a wast product and that if you drink it your body will become further dehydrated by having to dilute the urine to maintain homeostasis through osmosis. It will suck your fluids out of your third space and cells to make the high solution of the urine equalized to your body. iirc

[Randy]

fbates,
you need to authenticate that (drinking seawater bit). That's completely against what I've understood. My understanding is from first person accounts of WWII shipwreck survivors & as is commonly understood.

[Zanshin]

Drinking urine works in survival, but only once. Urine is sterile as well and has other uses. I've had a course where this was taught, but the US Army Field Manual states the opposite.

With regards to drinking sea water, one needs to add that the sea water supplemented water that the sailor collected through rain and through pressing liquids out of fish that he caught. This was Dr. Bombard, who believed his medical theories to the extent that he set across for a singlehanded Atlantic crossing with no water.

Just checked and found Alain Bombard@Everything2.com

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by rtbates

Drinking seawater is not as bad as most folks think, including the 'experts'...

I'm not certain how bad you think most folks think drinking seawater is; but there's absolutely no doubt that EVERY creditable expert would advise against it.

Dr. Alain Bombard claimed (1952) to have survived an ocean crossing in a small raft, using only seawater, and other provisions harvested from the ocean, but the veracity of his story is frequently challenged, and his findings (opinions) often misinterpreted & misquoted.

Bombard claimed that, if one is well hydrated, then sea water may be used to keep the body hydrated, along with other sources such as rainwater, plankton, and fluids from fish and other sea creatures. He never claimed that he only drank seawater, nor that he did not have copious amounts of freshwater.

Randy’s apparent disdain for expertise notwithstanding; the science clearly points out that drinking sea water in large amounts is very unhealthy. Drinking small quantities, without offsetting it with fresh water, is also very clearly unhealthy. As most times it would be impossible to supplement seawater with a proper amount of fresh water, in a survival situation, it is best to avoid it altogether. If a proper amount of fresh water were available, there would be no need to supplement it with sea water.

The US military (USMC Marine Combat Water Survival Manual), among others, is quite strict on this matter.
1. DO NOT drink saltwater.
2. DO NOT drink urine.
3. DO NOT drink alcohol.
4. DO NOT smoke.
5. DO NOT EAT unless water is available.

The Army has a study you can read online at ➥ http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/...v2/HE2ch29.pdf

Excerpted from page 31:
“... Drinking seawater increases the concentration of salt in the body fluid, further aggravating dehydration. The only way to get rid of the excess salt is by sacrificing internal water. Additionally, mixing salt water with freshwater does not help because of the obligatory shift from intracellular to extracellular water. Both of these scenarios hasten death. An absolute prohibition is needed against drinking seawater or mixing it with freshwater ...”

[Randy]

Gord,
On rereading my post I see I wasn't really clearly stating my perspective.
My uncle died on a destroyer in the So-Pacific in WWII. His ship was sunk off the Phillipines and upon talking to the survivors who spent 2 1/2 days in the water after the battle related extensive stories of otherwise uninjured guys drinking saltwater then suffering from severe hallucinations & many dying or swimming off thinking they were going for help.
I'm quite in agreement with your position.