As work work quietens down, it's time to look at the next stage of the
fit out for "Hinewai" - the water system (Thanks for a great thread
back in September - v.useful in the planning stage).

But we'd welcome your thoughts on Water Makers.

"Hinewai" is a 44 steel ketch and most of the time there'll only be
Jean and I on board. However, for longer passages, we'd plan on
having a couple of helpers so we're allowing for 4 persons on board.

We're allowing for passage water use of 5 gallons (25ltr) per day per
person - say 100ltr per day. We carry c. 500 ltr of water in the
tanks.

We have good solar and wind power generation which, to date, has been
more than enough for keeping the batteries topped up (but then we
don't bother that much with the refrigeration at the moment and
downwind sailing in the tropics will degrade the output from the fan).
We have a reasonable house battery bank of 520AH and are allowing
running the engine an hour a day, but we don't have room around the
engine for extra pulley etc so the water maker will have to be driven
12VDC.

Looking at the various options and allowing for our budget of around
Aus$10K, we're probably in the market for a water maker producing
c.50ltr per hour. These seem to draw c.15A in that time.

But, the big question is which system?

Down here in Australia, two makes predominate. Spectra and PUR (or
Katadyn as it seems to now be called).

All things being equal and assuming we look after the things right, do
any kind readers have any experiences, views, thoughts, comparisons,
etc about either - or any suggestions on alternatives?

Giving something back - especially for steel boat owners.

We currently have two steel water tanks of 300 ltr each, one side
being hull plate, each with a centre baffle. As part of this
exercise, we opened up out water tanks to inspect them and were
staggered at the breakdown of the paint system from our last
inspection a year ago - the insides looked like those shots of the
Titanic with its rusticles (but at least the clean water we were
getting at the taps showed the filter was still working).

With a manic grin and grinder in hand, I'm heading off to the boat
this weekend to cut the tops off the tanks. We'll sort out the paint
and the rust, line the tanks and are then installing four water
bladders - one either side of the baffle in each tank. I reckon this
will cost us some 50-100ltr capacity, but it will mean no more rust
worries and we only risk loosing 25% of our water if a "tank" gets
contaminated, not 50%. We'll retain the water integrity of the lower
part of the tank so if a bladder lets go, the water will be caught.

Well, hopefully it will work for us.

Thanks

Peter

(Also posted to rec.boats.building, uk.rec.sailing and aus.sport
sailing)



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