Water in the Pacific

[belizesailor]

Wow, 3 hours of genny run + 400W of solar...do u run the AC all day?

Originally Posted by Eder

Also I have 400 watts solar but I need to run my Northern Lights gen about 3 hours each day at anchor to charge batteries anyway so why not run the watermaker....I have a 500 gal/day unit but should have gone with the 1000 gal/day.

Gen is so quiet I often forget its running...I put a Gensup on it out of consideration for other cruisers...they cant hear it on when they tie their dingy to my stern....water maker is noisier but its in a sound enclosure and hard to hear it going when in the cockpit.
I dont think I could stand a day without a hot shower,shave, flushing toilets at will and hosing the salt off the boat.

[roverhi]

We cruised for a year through French Polynesia and didn't have to schlep water to the boat once. Caught rain water in the awning at anchor that kept our tanks topped off. Didn't ration water on passages just used it judiciously. Took advantage of passing showers to do luxurious scrub downs but other than that spent hours in the ocean so didn't need to waste fresh water getting clean. If we wanted to wash off the salt, filled a pan with water and sponged ourselves off. Used around a gallon a day between the two of us. Had 70 gallon storage in two tanks. Never completely emptied one tank before the next rain filled it back up in the entire voyage.


There are some areas like Baja that you'll need outside water source but even there reasonable use of water will cut down on any trips to a marina to purchase of water. If you are the type that can't get by without multiple freshwater showers, run the diswasher or whatever, a water maker might be needed. Have a dock mate who had to add a water maker and the generator to power it to make any voyage longer than a few days.

[roland stockham]

Water supply is a very personal thing. I crossed the Atlantic with a 2 man crew and about 50-60gal in the water tank, took us a month. Normally I reckon 25gal/month at sea or 50gal/month at anchor. Many could not even imagine how that is done.

If you don't want to fit a water maker (and be dependent on it working plus being able to feed it enough power, maintain it etc) I wold recommend fitting a cockpit shower fed from sea water. You can then rinse with 1/2gal fresh water sometimes if really salty. I also use the dingy as a bath. In a good tropical shower you get enough water in it for two to have a luxury bath. The other trick is to get a supply of 'waterless wash' This is what they use in long term care facilities where people have significant skin care issues. Works like wet wipes and you can damp a cloth with it for routine washing. If you are low on water it will do a full body wash, keep skin healthy and stop you getting smelly.
For drinking water look at an army surplus hand cranked water maker. If you do run out of water (or get stranded in the dingy/liferaft!) they will keep to of you in essential water for about 1hr pumping per day. Cost is under $100 on ebay but assume you will need a new filter at about $300.
For catching rain. I have found in the tropics that you get very heavy thunderstorms so you need a decent sized tarp and a means of collection. Buckets or jugs work well in habour and allow you to test water as you collect it but at sea have it rigged to directly feed one isolated tank. That is your rainwater tank and can be shut of so if it does get salty it does not contaminate the rest of the supply.
Look at the weather maps and see where the divide between the trade wind belts is. That is wher you get rain! It is shown on the official marine weather charts.

[inchcailloch]

Free water and shower provided for cruisers on the east side of the anchorage at Hiva Oa. Can be purchased either at the garage in Nuka Hiva or from Kevin at the yacht services who is a useful person to know and can provide or get in most things. Tahiti excellent for water at the marinas

[MJH]

The easy answer is YES, it has been done many times before. The big question is what are you two willing to live without? That can be difficult to answer if you have never experienced those circumstances before but you are ahead of the game by considering it.

My boat has two 100 gallon stainless steel tanks and no water maker. My total crew of crew of four sailed to Hawaii from Washington state in 22.5 days and used one tank getting there (it went dry just as we arrived). Before departure it was a big question that we talked about in detail. A broken hose getting to the Washington coast and emptying the entire 200 gallon supply within hours made us think twice again. So, we isolated the tanks, ruled that the circuit breaker on the pump was ALWAYS turned off after each use, manual pump was used as backup (no other way to access the water), no showers, and we carried 640 half liter bottles (4x8x20=640)in case of total tank failure. There was one crewmember change in Hawaii. On the return (21.5 days) we emptied one tank before getting to the Washington coast with the same procedures but slightly different crew makeup.

Previous to this trip I experienced crewmembers who would not sail with me to Hawaii if the boat did not have a water maker which is ridiculous. It is a matter of structuring your water use and planning for the worst. Water makers are costly machines, temperamental, require power and servicing, and do break down. Even if I had a water maker, I would plan for its loss enroute. **** happens!

Good Luck.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ Mike

[morpheus]

We cruised the Pacific last year with a water maker for convenience, but fellow cruisers Jerry jugged water from Contradora, Galápagos, Hiva Oa, Tahiti, Huahine, Bora Bora, Nuie, Tonga...........it wasn't always easy as they had to hire cars in some instances as the potable water stand pipes are not always on the dock.

[SV Sailfish]

Originally Posted by roverhi

We cruised for a year through French Polynesia and didn't have to schlep water to the boat once. Caught rain water in the awning at anchor that kept our tanks topped off. Didn't ration water on passages just used it judiciously. Took advantage of passing showers to do luxurious scrub downs but other than that spent hours in the ocean so didn't need to waste fresh water getting clean. If we wanted to wash off the salt, filled a pan with water and sponged ourselves off. Used around a gallon a day between the two of us. Had 70 gallon storage in two tanks. Never completely emptied one tank before the next rain filled it back up in the entire voyage.

+1

Same for us. In and around the South Pacific numerous times and trips. No water maker. 90 gallon tank. Never empty. No skimping. No Grapes of Wrath.

Now we have a water maker on our current boat that has been pickled and we never use it. Going to remove it.

Cheers and have a great trip!

[Maka]

You should have a hand pump water maker for your life raft.
That will get you by in an emergency.
Considering the extensive volume of your storage tanks, Id run with out an electric water maker and see how it goes. You can always add it later if you think you need it.


Keep your water tanks separated from each other. Never put water from a single source in all your tanks. It is possible to get contaminated water anywhere, even in Marinas.....Mexico for example. A contaminated tank can still be used for non potable water wash downs etc. ...then back to potable water after decontaminating it.

I always put a little Clorox ( Chlorine ) in ea tank ( I have 4/ 25 gal. tanks ) when filling them, even here in the US. Kills anything that might have grown in a partially filled tank.


A water maker is expensive to install and maintain. It also takes up space.


Just one mans opinion

[hpeer]

Great thread. We find that without trying we use very little water. 187 gallons in three tanks. We just went 2 months with a bunch of water left over. Foot pump in the galley sink, pressure in the shower, but we very seldome use it, mostly just to pull a couple of gallons to use in a cockpit shower. Really no loss in life style. We are comfortable.

I do keep a min 5 gal Jerry can and have a mil surplus hand pump water maker and a rebuild kit.

[philiosophy]

I have been cruising in Mexico then SouthAmerica and have worked my way to Fiji. I do not have a watermaker and we have baths at least every other day. Its not always convienient tho usually not hard at all. We have catchment systems, but mostly get our water from municipal sources and utilize Water Tank purification which is non Clorinated to make sure our water is safe. We wash all dishes in salt water so if that Beneteau doesn’t have a salt water foot pump you should install one. We give the dishes a light rinse of boiling water when we think we need to.
I am sure having a Water Maker is very nice. That said it is I believe the highest maintainence item on the boat. We also have a self priming water pump that sucks the water from the filled Jerry jusgin the dingy which means we almost never have to lift a jerry jug full of water. We have a cart for when we have to haul the water to the dingy.
I need the excercise anyway. Been doing it this way for 9 years now and don’t plan on a watermaker anytime soon. If I did get one it would either be AC and high capacity or engine driven.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by john61ct

You can certainly get by without one.

But having one can quickly pay for itself, and makes life much more pleasant.

It won't pay for itself financially. Not ever. Whether it makes sense for quality of life is a different question.



I haven't run numbers on AC watermakers so the following only applies to DC watermakers. I've spent a lot of time chewing on a decision process (spoiler alert: the answer for me is no watermaker). I came up with two metrics: Ah/g for energy efficiency and $/(Ah/g) for value. What I found is that for energy efficiency there is a sweet spot of around 1.2 - 1.3 Ah/g at around 300 - 400 gpd across brands. There has to be something physical (i.e. physics) going on there that I haven't tracked down. For value the numbers just go up with capacity - prices go up faster than efficiency and then they go up some more.



If I were to buy a watermaker it would be a Spectra Cape Horn. It's the best balance of energy efficiency and value for me. Crossing the Pacific would push me over the edge. Pretty much anywhere else in the world I'd load up on filters and maybe UV sterilizers and buy water.



Other people will look at the same data and come to different conclusions. We all have different needs and desires. I'd rather burn dinosaurs for A/C than for water. *grin*

[curtis742]

An issue with pacific water is there is a very good chance it is contaminated. I recently took an old CDC geiger counter to the local
Safeway market to test pacific salmon, Alaskan king crab and Pacific shrimp all of which showed radiation contamination from Fukishima's three reactors which melted down several years ago. A week later I tested a bottle of wild Alaskan salmon oil with the same result. While you may possibly get away with washing with this water you may want to reconsider drinking it. You may fare better south of the equator due to ocean currents. I was called a few weeks later to test a crate of tuna from China which tested negative for radiation but further inspection of the label on the box showed it originated from Australia.

[Mike Banks]

Make yourselves four solar stills. Two will do at a pinch--but four is better. There are plenty of plans available--and they cost NOTHING to run and almost nothing to maintain. You pour salt water in to the top tank--you get fresh water out of the bottom. A five foot long still (1.5 metres) will get you about half a gallon of drinking water a day in sunlight. Enough for survival. Tghe more stills you can put on deck, the more drinking water you get.

If you want to spend more money--a watermaker of the small kind that runs off 12 volts can be set up to deliver enough water for basics--but you will need solar power and wind generators to run this sort of gear with a refrigerator or two as well.

I use two Engel bin type refrigerators, one set as a freezer, the other as a refrigerator. The freezer takes one 100 watt panel just to tun it--the other fridge plus water pump plus lights runs from the other panel plus what comes from the wind. The more panels you can deploy, the better. One can not have too much free power when afloat.


Solar "Sandwich" type stills cost nothing to run and weigh much less than a glass-faced solar panel.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

I came up with two metrics: Ah/g for energy efficiency and $/(Ah/g) for value.

I don't care about energy efficiency, not using any battery stored power, have to burn dino juice anyway for bank charging, between 3 and 6 hours per week.

I just don't want to increase my runtime (much), so for me gph is the key metric.

Of course price is important, but system reliability, customer service & support, and generic components easy to source worldwide in primitive locations are more so.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by john61ct

I don't care about energy efficiency, not using any battery stored power, have to burn dino juice anyway for bank charging, between 3 and 6 hours per week.

I just don't want to increase my runtime (much), so for me gph is the key metric.

Of course price is important, but system reliability, customer service & support, and generic components easy to source worldwide in primitive locations are more so.

As I said, I only looked at DC watermakers.