Seaworthy Pocket Cruiser - Advice ?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Rain water collection systems are often very easy to implement, often it’s just a wet towel around the water fill so that water off of the deck flows into the water fill.
I believe anyone considering a long passage that doesn’t have a rain catchment plan whether or not they have a Watermaker is foolish.
Mine is our in boom furler, the boom is a big gutter, I tapped the drain and installed a standard plastic male water hose fitting, the amount of water that comes off of the main sail and flows into the gutter shaped boom is surprising in a rain storm, of course it means the main has to be up.
But it’s a back up plan is all, never actually been used.

It works a treat.. my method is hang a bucket on the goose neck then use the topping lift to incline the boom toward the mast.. have filled a 5gal bucket in 5mins this way.. 2 buckets work best, when the first is full hang the second before taking the full one back to fill your jugs..
By the time thats done the others full, repeat till rain stops or jug/tanks are full, whichever comes first..

[laika]

Originally Posted by storyinframes

How do people manage long crossing with small quantity of water storage? Space is limited for water maker.

We have a Vancouver 27, which is a "big" little boat by some standards. We MADE space for a watermaker. This particular V27 has only 30 gallons of tankage and we very much rely on the watermaker in remote places. We have a very serviceable unit with redundancy built in (dual feed pumps and spares) and we also carry a little handheld manual WM in the ditch bag.

If we were doing a trans-pacific we would probably bring some extra water jerries on board for the crossing. Otherwise, we have no worries about ever running out of water.

[Wayfarer1008]

From what I have read the Columbia 26's MKII suffer from a design flaw with the rudder and rudderpost in that they are too lightly built for the continuous loads that come from ocean travel. The MKI does not suffer from this flaw but will suffer from all of the old boat maladies one would expect in an old boat. Attached is a good writeup on the MKII that should help anyone thinking of using one of these boats for cruising.
Columbia 26 Mk II Specifications