Katadyn 160 Advice Needed

[ksanders]

Hello

I am a very happy owner of a Katadyn 160 watermaker. The advice needed is in regards to the installation.

The watermaker draws water from a through hull with seacock and is located in the lazarette of my boat. The unit is directly adjacent to the seacock and uses the standard single filter setup.

It has a 3 way valve on the seacock side of the filter and a 3 way valve on the fresh water side of the watermaker as well, which will direct water to either a test hose, or to one of my water tanks.

The watermaker works perfectly while at rest. I have a low capacity flow meter installed and get up to 6 GPH of fresh water.

The problem is when I'm cruising, the watermaker picks up small air bubbles. These build up and eventually stop the output. The fix is to use the built in bypass valve to clear the watermaker then go through the watermaker startup process all over again.

The bubbles seem to be coming from the props, and I think they are the normal result of props turning. They are really small but they build up over an hour or so.

I know that the best solution would be to add another thru hull somwewhere foward, but I'm trying really hard not to do that just for the watermaker. What I really want to do is solve the bubble problem some other way.

One possible solution I thought of would be to add a small tank that the watermaker could draw water from. This could be either gravity fed or fed from a pump, but would be set up so it has an overboard discharge/vent line. That way the bubbles would make their way to the top, be vented overboard, and the watermaker would draw bubble free water.

The problem I see with this method is safety. Since the tank would be below the waterline then it would be pressurized with sea water 100% of the time the seacock is open. Thats not a plesant thought.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks