Drinking Water from watertanks

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Gard

...I sometimes wonder how it must be like to take showers every day, hose salt off boat and gear, never let water govern ones itinerary, flush toilet with fresh water to avoid the stink, never worry about quality...Those lucky bastards with big watermakers and tons of solar. Some day, I will get one also - you just wait and see!

There is no free lunch. A large capacity water maker needs more power. More power requires more solar, or genset, or longer engine running time (fuel). More solar or a genset is extra weight and reduced sailing performance or a bigger boat. Somewhere you have to pay the piper.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

I think there is far too much concern with perfect water. I added clear inspection ports between the baffles to facilitate good scrubbing and from there on, inspecting. Did the beach thing, to shock. I fill up at my dock which is city, chlorinated water and this is what we drink anyways. Ever wonder what the pipes from the water company to your home look like? I do...pretty slimy. Yet we drink that. If you use and refill at regular intervals there should not be a problem. This is way over thought.

Agreed. Start clean, and use it. Don't let it sit for long periods, and you'll be fine.

Most of us are blessed with superb municipal water. If you use this, and do basic maintenance on your tank, then there really is no reason to make it more complicated.

On our system we have an inline carbon & physical filter as well. This is mostly to take any residual tastes taste out.

BTW Gard, I too would love a watermaker. I can't justify the cost and bother given our current needs ... but I still want one. A Powersurvivor 40 would be perfect, I think.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by wingssail

We have been using water from our tanks for 35 years, refilling usually weekly but less often when out cruising away from water sources. We have filled from docks all over the world. If we doubt the source we treat it with bleach using EPS recommended concentrations. If the water is potable but tastes bad (as it does currently from our dock in La Cruz), we drink bottled water. The taste gets past our 1 micron carbon filter, amazingly. We have carried water in plastic jerry cans on deck on two ocean passages when extra crew increased our projected daily usage (Turned out to be unnecessary).

We've cleaned our tanks once or twice to remove sediment, never thoroughly, but we've replaced two them at roughly ten year intervals so the new ones are clean. Two aluminum tanks are 30+ years old, still in daily use, including for drinking.

Best water:

1. Natural springs at Puerto Escondido, Baja California, Mexico. First time was in 1997, most recent: April, 2022
2. Rainwater (despite the recent reports that rainwater has chems). During rainy seasons our water catchment can capture 100 gallons on one inch of rainfall. Currently we are keeping our tanks filled with beautifully sweet rainwater since July 1, 2022 and not looking forward to less rain as the summer progresses
3. Power Survivor 35 water maker. Been in use on this boat since 1993. Low volume.

Sailors on sailing ships have used water from their tanks for a few thousand years, it's tradition I think.

It would be interesting to hear about your water catchment system.

[SailFastTri]

Water catchment concerns me because there's always bird poop residual contamination to worry about.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

It would be interesting to hear about your water catchment system.

We have a sun awning which covers the boat from mast to the end of the boom over the boom that doubles as our water catchment system. We made this onboard.

It is only usable when we are not sailing (we have other awnings which can be deployed while sailing, but do not catch water.)

It is 12 ft x 13 ft, made of sunbrella, and supported fwd and aft by PVC pipe (sched 80) secured by small stuff lashed to the mast, shrouds fwd and the running backstays and perm backstay aft. It is mostly flat but slightly bowed. Gutters were sewn in on both longitudinal edges (using broad seaming). At the low point on each side a sunbrella funnel is sewn in and it contains a PVC fitting and nipple (1") and to the nipple a 6' 1" hose is slipped on. The hoses enter the deck fills on either side of the boat. There are also two "leashes", one on each side going to the deck, which help control the awning in strong winds. (the hoses and leashes are not shown in the photo below)

The area is 156sq ft, 1 inch of rain captures 13 cubic feet of water and at 7.4 gallons per cubic foot it equals 96.2 gallons.

It can withstand winds at least 30 knots, more when directly from the bow but during strong winds it does not collect water since the shaking of the canvass throws off the water.

Originally Posted by SailFastTri

Water catchment concerns me because there's always bird poop residual contamination to worry about.

On WINGS drinking water goes through a 1 micron carbon filter. Consider also that most municipal water systems use square miles of watershed with all kinds of animals and birds living there.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by wingssail

We have a sun awning which covers the boat from mast to the end of the boom over the boom that doubles as our water catchment system. We made this onboard.

It is only usable when we are not sailing (we have other awnings which can be deployed while sailing, but do not catch water.)

It is 12 ft x 13 ft, made of sunbrella, and supported fwd and aft by PVC pipe (sched 80) secured by small stuff lashed to the mast, shrouds fwd and the running backstays and perm backstay aft. It is mostly flat but slightly bowed. Gutters were sewn in on both longitudinal edges (using broad seaming). At the low point on each side a sunbrella funnel is sewn in and it contains a PVC fitting and nipple (1") and to the nipple a 6' 1" hose is slipped on. The hoses enter the deck fills on either side of the boat. There are also two "leashes", one on each side going to the deck, which help control the awning in strong winds. (the hoses and leashes are not shown in the photo below)

The area is 156sq ft, 1 inch of rain captures 13 cubic feet of water and at 7.4 gallons per cubic foot it equals 96.2 gallons.

It can withstand winds at least 30 knots, more when directly from the bow but during strong winds it does not collect water since the shaking of the canvass throws off the water.



On WINGS drinking water goes through a 1 micron carbon filter. Consider also that most municipal water systems use square miles of watershed with all kinds of animals and birds living there.

Really nice set up!

[kram45]

Originally Posted by wingssail

We have a sun awning which covers the boat from mast to the end of the boom over the boom that doubles as our water catchment system. We made this onboard.

It is only usable when we are not sailing (we have other awnings which can be deployed while sailing, but do not catch water.)

It is 12 ft x 13 ft, made of sunbrella, and supported fwd and aft by PVC pipe (sched 80) secured by small stuff lashed to the mast, shrouds fwd and the running backstays and perm backstay aft. It is mostly flat but slightly bowed. Gutters were sewn in on both longitudinal edges (using broad seaming). At the low point on each side a sunbrella funnel is sewn in and it contains a PVC fitting and nipple (1") and to the nipple a 6' 1" hose is slipped on. The hoses enter the deck fills on either side of the boat. There are also two "leashes", one on each side going to the deck, which help control the awning in strong winds. (the hoses and leashes are not shown in the photo below)

The area is 156sq ft, 1 inch of rain captures 13 cubic feet of water and at 7.4 gallons per cubic foot it equals 96.2 gallons.

It can withstand winds at least 30 knots, more when directly from the bow but during strong winds it does not collect water since the shaking of the canvass throws off the water.



On WINGS drinking water goes through a 1 micron carbon filter. Consider also that most municipal water systems use square miles of watershed with all kinds of animals and birds living there.

This is very informative.

[skipgundlach]

We caught water from the deck; a nice rainstorm was a good excuse to scrub the deck, anyway. Then let it rinse, and opened the scuppers/fills to our 195 and 120 gallon tanks.

We did that once in Vero Beach FL and resolved to never do it again, as it was horrible tasting compared to our Bahamas catch; too much junk in the air, we expect.

One year it was particularly rainy in the Bahamas; we sailed home with not only both main tanks but the auxiliary, gravity-feed, tank full. The standing column of water after in the fill tube to the main tank was full backfilled the gravity tank; I checked that 50 gallons and shut the cap after it, too, was full.

Here's how we caught our water:

[Emmalina]

Last ten years pickled the WM we use rain water or spring water from the islands around here Drinking water goes through a 6 level filter system. Clean the tanks every couple of years but never used bleach as stainless isn't a big fan.

[rslifkin]

Ideally if rain catchment is a regular source of water, I'd want to feed it into a separate tank. And then from that tank, pump the water through a very fine sediment filter, then a carbon filter (a large one and at a slow flow rate to maximize adsorption of anything that will make water taste or smell bad). And then through a UV sterilizer and add some chlorine to the main tank to make sure nothing starts to grow. You could skip the UV, but then it's more of a guess of how much chlorine you'll need vs just maintaining a slight residual to keep the tank clean.

[Mike OReilly]

Love the rain catcher Wing. I keep planning to make something, but haven’t faced the need yet. You may inspire…

We do use rainwater for showers or other cleaning needs on board. This we catch in our dinghy. I’ve occasionally used spring water when available. And back when I sailed Lake Superior we would often drink directly from the lake. One trip I refilled our main tank (when I miscalculated on how much water we initially had).

[RSB333]

Does the chlorine treatment damage bladder type tanks.?(rubberized nylon)