Water Consumption

[barnakiel]

zeehag: I agree with salt water for dish washing, but NOT with rain water (... catch what I am able ...) for anything except cooking (where the rain water is boiled before use). But I am not sure you mean rain.

We found that stuff washed in rainwater gets moldy in no time. Also tea will show a (???) bacteria skin (scum) - not bad taste though, if a bit metalic. No problem for coffee drinkers though, I think.

b.

[Hudson Force]

We carry 200 gallons aboard,- 150 gallons in below deck tanks & 40 in on deck containers. We find this is adequate for us (two adults) for one month without being extremely conservative.

[YOGAO]

Originally Posted by CaptForce

We carry 200 gallons aboard,- 150 gallons in below deck tanks & 40 in on deck containers. We find this is adequate for us (two adults) for one month without being extremely conservative.

Guess it depends on what you call conservative

FW,
Mike

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Tellie

How many blue Jerry cans do you carry on board, six maybe eight? That's 3-4 one way dingy trips to lug em. Have fun.
PS My watermaker makes beer.

We never lug gerries. We head to a marina or fuel wharfe to fill up.

We always have a bit of space for fuel and say "No Water No Fuel"!

Then we get $20 of deisel! LOL

[SV THIRD DAY]

I just wrote a little blog post about water usage and water maker size selection

Cruising Myth No 27 | SV THIRD DAY

By the way, we use 20-25gals/day for a crew of 4, we are cruising, not camping!


Rich
S/V THIRD DAY

[Sailndive345]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

zeehag: I agree with salt water for dish washing, but NOT with rain water (... catch what I am able ...) for anything except cooking (where the rain water is boiled before use). But I am not sure you mean rain.

We found that stuff washed in rainwater gets moldy in no time. Also tea will show a (???) bacteria skin (scum) - not bad taste though, if a bit metalic. No problem for coffee drinkers though, I think.

b.

Interesting... Do you think the rain water contamination is limited to populated areas (pollution, etc) or exists even in the open ocean?

I wondered since I had always thought rain water was ok to collect and store - the older sailing publications always showed methods to collect the rain water and direct it straight in to the water tanks - Wouldn't this cause contamination of the water supply?

Fair winds!

Sailndive

[sailing now]

WOW! I guess we're water hogs/wasters! I put our usage at about 15 gallons/day. We do have a WM that makes about 7 gal/hr. Tankage is about a 100 gal and I carry another 10 on the foredeck just in case, plus if I opt to schlep water rather than make it, I've have the jugs.

[Tellie]

Rich, I always love reading about your travels and I enjoyed myth #27 Being in the watermaker business I get to hear lots of stories, anecdotes, opinions and tall tales about what everyone else needs or doesn't need according to everyone else. One thing I've learned is that there is NO one size fits all watermaker. 50 gph is great if you use it. I never hear anyone who bragged about a two cup shower who eventually installed a watermaker keep up that routine. If they did they usually tell me they never run aground as well. Most 50gph watermakers I know of are on much larger boats. Like Gord said, he had only 20-25 gallons of tankage. There are a lot of boats out there with similarly small tankage. A 50gph watermaker on those boats would be too large. People are as different as the boats they sail. Their wants and needs are as well. Is water available in the Bahamas? Yep. But I assure you there are a whole lot of happy boaters in the Bahamas with watermakers. I like Richs line that they are cruising not camping. When it come to things you can do without there are a lot of things we can take off of our boats that we don't really need. If your goal is to be the most frugal Spartan cruiser there is, have fun. If you want to live comfortably you shouldn't feel guilty by others because you like a good shower everyday. Rich says he washes down his gear and boat on a regular basis. It's kind of hard to do that when you are budgeting yourself to a gallon a day. That's expensive gear he gets to keep clean. Add all the costs of that gear up, diving gear, deck equipment, running gear, lines, winches, windlasses, etc. and you'll far exceed the cost of even the most expensive watermaker. Giving that gear a regular freshwater flush to extend it's life considerably, while the admiral is taking a nice shower, makes sense to me. But like I said everybodys different. What works for one rarely works for another.

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by YOGAO

Guess it depends on what you call conservative

FW,
Mike

Good point and I don't know how to quantify this "conservative" water use, but I could clarify by saying that we bathe daily from a basin (not showering) and use our water for washing dishes and cooking, drinking of course and a little for cleaning such as a cup to rinse the dried salt off the windscreen, etc.

[Minggat]

Hi Rick. It's Don.

While I appreciate that you make no claim to be an "expert", you seem to completely discount the experts opinions. At the same time, having been in the industrial water treatment industry for 35 years, and having been a part of commissioning desalination plants as large as 200 MGD (million gallons per day), I will also make no claim to be an expert. I know too many people who know a whole lot more about it than I do. But I will call myself a specialist. so I will pipe in here.

First of all, there is something right about your 50 GPH unit because it seems to be serving you well. Nonetheless, while sitting unused too long is a negative, there are other issues that you might need to deal with short of the projected life of your membrane module. Perhaps not. Time will tell.

In large scale operations where thousands of membranes are involved, an "autopsy" is often preformed on membranes that fail early. I don't think that would be justified in one of our little water maker units.

The issue that comes to mind is one called "hideout". Basically it means that it takes running time to completely flush a membrane.
This is due to the nature of spiral wound membranes and the physical distance that water has to travel through each leaf or envelope of a module.

When starting up a large desal system, the best water does not show up for many hours. Most commonly the best quality of water produced will be about a DAY & A HALF after the button is pushed! In addition, industrial system incorporate chemical feed to optimize operation of the plant. The chemical feed is acid for pH control (to 6.5-not 7) and anti scalent. The pH is kept low to help keep dissolved solids in solution, so it is an anti scalent aid.

Having said all that, I will also throw in that industrial systems typically also have a higher recover rate, which I suspect is largely why our little water makers can get away without the chemical feed.

Aside from the possibility of being under operated to the point that a membrane may suffer, there is the point you mention of cost. But one other point that I feel we have to deal with is the footprint taken up by the systems we use. Not all boats have a spot to put a big system.

So we are back to the balance/compromise scenario that we are so often up against.

As for me, I sacrificed my forward tank in favor of more storage space, so I now carry only 40 gallons in 2 saddle tanks. I upgraded from a 1.5 GPH unit to a 7.5 GPH unit which consumes part of the space that my former water tank was in.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Sailndive345

...Interesting... Do you think the rain water contamination is limited to populated areas (pollution, etc) or exists even in the open ocean?

I wondered since I had always thought rain water was ok to collect and store - the older sailing publications always showed methods to collect the rain water and direct it straight in to the water tanks - Wouldn't this cause contamination of the water supply?...

I believe rain water contents differ very little between the inshore / land areas and the open sea - after all the clouds that carry the vapour that becomes rain will, potentially, travel long distances before they come down to our tanks. Think about acid rains, think about the Chernobyl disaster.

But the land (soil, fumes, etc.) contamination is just one thing.

If you read about what a cloud really is then it becomes clear that bacteria is present in rainwater even in the situation when the cloud comes to life over the ocean area. It does not imply the bacteria is harmful per se, but definitely keeping such water over any period does not help.

On our round-the-world we never drank non-boiled raw water (rain or shore) once ... only PET water from a know source or boiled water from the tanks. Then again, we never had diarrhea once either.

Next time out catch some water and get yourself a cup of Lipton, let it cool down 30 minutes before drinking - and then tell me if you liked it.

I will continue to use the rain water on my passages if just for the fun of it, but I would not mix the rainwater with the 'good' water in my tanks - rather store it in a separate one.

Interestingly, some of the best Earl Grey I had in my life was made with rain water collected by Tongans in Nukualofa - it was close to the end to the season and there was just some water left ... would this mean that sun radiation 'purified' the water ???

b.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

... On our round-the-world we never drank non-boiled raw water (rain or shore) once ... only PET water from a know source or boiled water from the tanks. Then again, we never had diarrhea once either ...

I trust that you’re referring to the containers, when you specify PET* water.
Can you give examples of what you consider known (safe) sources of bottled water?

* polyethylene terephthalate

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by Tellie

100-120 gallons on an average cruising boat. That's a 20-24 Jerry can shuffle per fill up. How many blue Jerry cans do you carry on board, six maybe eight? That's 3-4 one way dingy trips to lug em. Have fun.
PS My watermaker makes beer.

Tellie,

I have four jerry jugs for water. I fill them right up and get nearly 28 gallons each trip. About twice a season I find the tanks nearly empty and make about four or five trips, standing up in my go-fast dink. I anchor the big boat (it's not really big but folks call the sailboat the big boat to distinguish it from the little boat, the dinghy) about 200 yards from a little beach which is about 50 feet from the standpipe. When returning with the filled jugs, by the time the dink gets up on plane I'm back at the big boat. This is my exercise for the month. When I finish this chore I'm so proud of myself that I can still do this, I have a beer, sometimes two. If I'm in Georgetown I usually take a jug or two with me when I go into town. The water there is right at the dinghy dock so there's not a lot of effort required. I usually have only one beer after doing this.

[barnakiel]

Gord: - yes, read: in PET bottles.

My definition of safe sources of PET water is - bought in large quantities (we prefer plastic wrapped 6packs of 1.5 or 2 liter units) from a big supermarket (as opposed to single units bought in a small family run shop).

Any locally established brand seems good as well as water from coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc.. I think it is not so much about the water they packed but much more about what hygiene they had in the factory and among the packing staff.

2003, in La Gomera, Spain we bought local spring water packed in very convenient Gallon jerries. The water went bad before we reached mid-Atlantic. Meanwhile, tap water from the same island kept all the way to Martinique.

I hope this explains my earlier statement.

Hugs,
barnie

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by Vasco

Tellie,

I have four jerry jugs for water. I fill them right up and get nearly 28 gallons each trip. About twice a season I find the tanks nearly empty and make about four or five trips, standing up in my go-fast dink. I anchor the big boat (it's not really big but folks call the sailboat the big boat to distinguish it from the little boat, the dinghy) about 200 yards from a little beach which is about 50 feet from the standpipe. When returning with the filled jugs, by the time the dink gets up on plane I'm back at the big boat. This is my exercise for the month. When I finish this chore I'm so proud of myself that I can still do this, I have a beer, sometimes two. If I'm in Georgetown I usually take a jug or two with me when I go into town. The water there is right at the dinghy dock so there's not a lot of effort required. I usually have only one beer after doing this.

Hey Vasco, bring six beers, three for you and three for me, over to Poerava and I'll fill your tanks with no more effort than it takes to twist off six tops.