Greetings all,

A tad of background - currently refitting our 22 year old Roberts 43
Mauritius Ketch for the 2007 Melbourne-Osaka and then a northern
pacific crossing to Canada and the Land of the Free, Panama and then
onto Europe.

One of the jobs still to do is the black water plumbing. It's on the
list for the big haul-out in July

A couple of years back, I managed to pick up a Lectra San unit at a
nice price (it has already been fitted of course prior to Nov 2005 -
see below) and recently contacted one our local Marine sanitation guys
and said "Hi, I have this unit. I want you to help me plumb it in
along with the new holding tank."

After a pause, he asked why and proceeded to advise me that I had an
expensive spare anchor:

- Lectra San has lost its licence in Australia
- the acid wash rots out the glue
- the electronics board only lasts a year or so and costs mega bucks
to replace
- it's horrendously power hungry
etc

Now I've sailed on yachts with L Sans before and had no problems, but…

Q1 - I've googled and all I can find is that NSW has said that their
approval for L Sans expired in Nov 05 (Just as well we, of course, had
fitted our prior.) We live in Victoria so don't really care what NSW
does.

And frankly, when we leave in March 07, we won't be back in Oz waters
for 5 years or so, but does anyone know what the rules actually are
outside NSW?

Q2 - This is the first time I've heard such bad things about L Sans.
I realise they chew a bit of power, but then don't plan to be using it
that often. What of the other things?

Q3 - If Oz is getting snotty about L San, what's happening overseas?
What are the overall rules where you live? Frankly, is it worth
fitting the L San or visiting ebay to see what i can get for it?

The man recommended a VacuFlush and 170ltr holding tank instead. I
can see his point - even with my cooking, at ½ a litre a pop that
gives lots of capacity. But it's been an absolute paradigm to have
the L San for so long, it's hard to walk away from.

Help - I don't know what to do.

Peter