Water, Water, Everywhere, And Not A Drop To Drink!

One of the first things we realized we’d need for our big boat trip is a whole lot of water and it seems that there are basically three ways to deal with water on a boat when crossing oceans.

1. We could carry just enough water on board to keep people hydrated, about one gallon per person per day.  This would mean using saltwater for everything else, from washing clothes and dishes, to bathing and even cooking.  For a 3 week passage with 6 people, this means starting with at least 120 gallons of fresh water, just about what Mobert carries in her tanks currently.
2. If we want to have a more comfortable cruise, we’ll need more like five gallons per person per day.  For the same 3 week passage with 6 people, we’d need to carry at least 600 gallons of fresh water.  Even traditional cruising boats with deep bilges and tons of tankage are unlikely to carry that much water.  It would necessitate modifying the boat and/or carrying a bunch of water jugs on deck.
3. Or we can install a water maker and drastically reduce our concern about water.  With a water maker onboard we would have the ability to refill the tanks as needed throughout the voyage by converting the saltwater outside the boat into clean fresh water.  Aside from ensuring an adequate supply on long passages, this would also save us the work of having to haul water jugs across marinas in foreign ports to fill our tanks.

Of course there are downsides to going with a water maker.  First and foremost is the upfront cost of the system and installation.  An installed water maker can run from $4000 on up to $10s of thousands.  Then there is the cost of periodic maintenance, replacing membranes and filters, and finally the energy consumption.   Short of air conditioning, a water maker is pretty much the highest consumer of electricity on a cruising boat.

Others may have a different opinion, but we don’t plan to spend 12-18 months constantly worrying about water consumption, skipping showers, and hauling water jugs across docks and in the dinghy at every port.  For this reason, a water maker, for us, is a given.  The only real question is which one.  I’ll be diving in to that over the next several posts.