"The E29 has insufficient tankage for a cruising boat," declares everyone who has ever reviewed it.
This brings up the potentially devastating digression of exactly how much is "sufficient?" The most common guestimate that I've come across is that five gallons a day is pretty comfortable for a modest couple. I think I'd have to waste quite a lot to use that much by myself. Certainly I don't use that much when I'm backpacking, but I imagine a few more creature comforts than that on the boat. In a pinch, a gallon per day per crew, but more is better.
Interestingly, through the fine art of Google manipulation, vendors of high-capacity water makers have lodged the following declaration at the top of all sailing/water-related searches (go try it!) "For cruising, you need about 20 gallons per person per day." Whereas the more staid Wikipedia seems to fall in line with other sources at 1 - 5 gallons per day.
Then, there is the factor of how many days? I don't have explicit plans to cross oceans, but at least hanging around in remote anchorages for pretty much as long as i want to would be nice. Let's say up to 30 days, for planning purposes. So somewhere between 30 and 150 gallons of water ought to be "sufficient" tankage. Well, 150 gallons is 1200 pounds, which utterly blows up my manifest spreadsheet. So somewhere more around the 30 gallon end of the scale is my target.
Oh, wait. You've already read the title so about now you're thinking, "Yeah, but what if the supply were effectively infinite?" Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Let's think about those tanks.
When Arcturus came to me, there was a hard plastic tank hacked into the space under the quarterberth. The opening of the hatch had to be chopped back to fit it in, and the long edge stuck out of the opening a couple of inches. I guess you were just supposed to have a really thick mattress laid over it? Well I tossed that thing out and put in a Plastimo 100L bladder tank. (Ouch, flipping between gallons and liters again. I should go back and edit this.) Well, here is the big plan as it stands. Yeah, I could add in some more isolation valves and such, but everything is complex enough at the moment. Tank 1 would be a "day use" tank from which the daily loads are pumped and which is topped-off by the water maker each day. (You don't want to feed a water maker into your only tank, in case something goes wrong and it starts pumping sea water!) Tank 2 would be the reserve for a heavy use day, or if something goes wrong.
Tank 1 was originally planned at 6.5 gal but the 25L tank is apparently discontinued. So that leaves me with 39 gal of tankage (plus 6 in the water heater and probably a can on deck somewhere.) That fits within my definition of "sufficient" even if something goes wrong with the water maker. And it does "fit" on the E29. As mentioned above, the 100L tank fits with room to spare under the Q-berth. (Blue bits below are water related.) Probably both tanks could fit there. But I've been thinking that the larger tank could go down in the bilge, for a bit more stability. I'll test for fit this winter. For the time being, the tank under the Q-berth balances out the weight of the galley and helps trim the boat.
For those with more time on their hands (or those who have to rip up the cabin sole to replace the mast step) there seems to be plenty of room down there to make an integral water tank with a T cross section. Hard to guess how much it could hold. Maybe on the order of 100 gallons? Here's an impressive blog example about making one.
Now finally to the main event. Those 39 gallons of nominal tankage will never (*cough*) run dry because they will get topped off every day by a 12VDC water maker!
It has been some years now but my occasional scanning (bottom-feeding) of the "boat parts" listings on Craigslist turned up a brand new, old, never installed Powersurvivor 35 Water Maker in original packaging. Not "Katadyn," not "PUR," but an original "Recovery Engineering" low-energy water maker. Many of you are already familiar with this thing, but I'll spend a paragraph on it. The claim to fame for the PowerSurvivor is that unlike all other water makers, it doesn't use a boat-load of energy. No need for a generator to power it. It runs on 12VDC and draws about 5 amps. Of course, it doesn't make anywhere near as much water, nor do it as fast as the others. It's rated at 1.5 gallons per hour of run time. Therefore, I'd have to run it about 1 - 4 hours a day to make up my projected usage, depending on whether laundry or a hollywood shower takes place. Or, you know, extra crew (LOL). I've seen some armchair engineers suggest that in fact this ends up using more watt-hours per gallon of water than one of the "high energy" 110VAC units that does it more quickly. So if you have the Watts, and the crew, those may be a better bet. I'm not trying to sell this unit, I just found it, and figure that it meets my current needs. The other big selling point is that if your boat somehow runs out of power, there is a nifty handle that you can get out and pump to make water using only your own elbow grease. (In fact you can still buy these things without the motor, for your ditch kit, at several times what I paid for the whole unit.) (How much extra water do you respire, by doing all that pumping?)
So the PS35 is an awkward, relatively heavy, L-shaped beast. And like most "systems" it gets surrounded by an intestinal maze of plumbing, external filters, controls, & etc. When it came right down to it, it wasn't easy to find a place for it! (Newer models bend the filter housing around to make a more compact U shape.) I tried both sides of the V-berth bulkheads, but just couldn't make it fit with all of its impedimenta. And created a lot of extra holes in the bulkhead for nothing! So the project stalled for a few months while I, you know, sailed the boat! (I wasn't in any rush because finishing the installation starts the life-time clock of the RO membrane running. No sense wasting it.)
Eventually I started thinking more better... or at least three-dimensionally. That forward end of the starboard settee, where the boat starts getting narrow, is a small awkward space. How likely is it that a large awkward system could fit inside a small awkward space? What about if you flip it upside down and bolt it to the underside of the settee, where the locker is wide but otherwise useless! Plus it's right next to the through-hulls, waste lines could be plumbed to the lavatory drain, all below the waterline so everything should self-prime, the upholstery might make some sound insulation, and it won't drip on anybody's pillow!
It's a bit hard to photograph down in that little wedge-shaped space but now it's done and seems to work fine. There's just enough room left to store a supply of pre-filters and the cleaning chemicals. And most of the connections are even easily accessible for maintenance.
Back side view, looking forward. From left, control box, pre-filter housing, PS35 motor. Emergency pump handle lays below - need to make a secure keeper for that and the filter wrench...
So I cobbled together a control panel mostly from my lab parts bins, and set it into the front of the settee. I recessed the panel in the box so I won't kick it while staggering around in the salon. But I could make a door/cover, if it turns out to be needed.
As usual, all the devices fit neatly in the allotted space, but things got a little hairy when I added all the wires and tubes to connect it all together! D'Oh! I had to put in some 90° fittings to make it all fit. Possibly should have separated the electrical and plumbing bits a little better.
So, one problem with this is that it's piggy-backed on to the head through-hulls (in parallel with the lavatory and the heat pump (see previous post.) That intake isn't vey far down from the water line. When "rail down" on starboard tack, it might suck air. Happily, (three dimensions, man!) it's only about seven feet back to a spot where one could tee-into the engine strainer, and draw water from the deep port-side through-hull. Hmm, so I need another valve for this bypass line...
And I need to buy that "day tank."
So, the project isn't "over with" but it's pretty much installed.
And the E29 has sufficient tankage for whatever.
This brings up the potentially devastating digression of exactly how much is "sufficient?" The most common guestimate that I've come across is that five gallons a day is pretty comfortable for a modest couple. I think I'd have to waste quite a lot to use that much by myself. Certainly I don't use that much when I'm backpacking, but I imagine a few more creature comforts than that on the boat. In a pinch, a gallon per day per crew, but more is better.
Interestingly, through the fine art of Google manipulation, vendors of high-capacity water makers have lodged the following declaration at the top of all sailing/water-related searches (go try it!) "For cruising, you need about 20 gallons per person per day." Whereas the more staid Wikipedia seems to fall in line with other sources at 1 - 5 gallons per day.
Then, there is the factor of how many days? I don't have explicit plans to cross oceans, but at least hanging around in remote anchorages for pretty much as long as i want to would be nice. Let's say up to 30 days, for planning purposes. So somewhere between 30 and 150 gallons of water ought to be "sufficient" tankage. Well, 150 gallons is 1200 pounds, which utterly blows up my manifest spreadsheet. So somewhere more around the 30 gallon end of the scale is my target.
Oh, wait. You've already read the title so about now you're thinking, "Yeah, but what if the supply were effectively infinite?" Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Let's think about those tanks.
When Arcturus came to me, there was a hard plastic tank hacked into the space under the quarterberth. The opening of the hatch had to be chopped back to fit it in, and the long edge stuck out of the opening a couple of inches. I guess you were just supposed to have a really thick mattress laid over it? Well I tossed that thing out and put in a Plastimo 100L bladder tank. (Ouch, flipping between gallons and liters again. I should go back and edit this.) Well, here is the big plan as it stands. Yeah, I could add in some more isolation valves and such, but everything is complex enough at the moment. Tank 1 would be a "day use" tank from which the daily loads are pumped and which is topped-off by the water maker each day. (You don't want to feed a water maker into your only tank, in case something goes wrong and it starts pumping sea water!) Tank 2 would be the reserve for a heavy use day, or if something goes wrong.
Tank 1 was originally planned at 6.5 gal but the 25L tank is apparently discontinued. So that leaves me with 39 gal of tankage (plus 6 in the water heater and probably a can on deck somewhere.) That fits within my definition of "sufficient" even if something goes wrong with the water maker. And it does "fit" on the E29. As mentioned above, the 100L tank fits with room to spare under the Q-berth. (Blue bits below are water related.) Probably both tanks could fit there. But I've been thinking that the larger tank could go down in the bilge, for a bit more stability. I'll test for fit this winter. For the time being, the tank under the Q-berth balances out the weight of the galley and helps trim the boat.
For those with more time on their hands (or those who have to rip up the cabin sole to replace the mast step) there seems to be plenty of room down there to make an integral water tank with a T cross section. Hard to guess how much it could hold. Maybe on the order of 100 gallons? Here's an impressive blog example about making one.
Now finally to the main event. Those 39 gallons of nominal tankage will never (*cough*) run dry because they will get topped off every day by a 12VDC water maker!
It has been some years now but my occasional scanning (bottom-feeding) of the "boat parts" listings on Craigslist turned up a brand new, old, never installed Powersurvivor 35 Water Maker in original packaging. Not "Katadyn," not "PUR," but an original "Recovery Engineering" low-energy water maker. Many of you are already familiar with this thing, but I'll spend a paragraph on it. The claim to fame for the PowerSurvivor is that unlike all other water makers, it doesn't use a boat-load of energy. No need for a generator to power it. It runs on 12VDC and draws about 5 amps. Of course, it doesn't make anywhere near as much water, nor do it as fast as the others. It's rated at 1.5 gallons per hour of run time. Therefore, I'd have to run it about 1 - 4 hours a day to make up my projected usage, depending on whether laundry or a hollywood shower takes place. Or, you know, extra crew (LOL). I've seen some armchair engineers suggest that in fact this ends up using more watt-hours per gallon of water than one of the "high energy" 110VAC units that does it more quickly. So if you have the Watts, and the crew, those may be a better bet. I'm not trying to sell this unit, I just found it, and figure that it meets my current needs. The other big selling point is that if your boat somehow runs out of power, there is a nifty handle that you can get out and pump to make water using only your own elbow grease. (In fact you can still buy these things without the motor, for your ditch kit, at several times what I paid for the whole unit.) (How much extra water do you respire, by doing all that pumping?)
So the PS35 is an awkward, relatively heavy, L-shaped beast. And like most "systems" it gets surrounded by an intestinal maze of plumbing, external filters, controls, & etc. When it came right down to it, it wasn't easy to find a place for it! (Newer models bend the filter housing around to make a more compact U shape.) I tried both sides of the V-berth bulkheads, but just couldn't make it fit with all of its impedimenta. And created a lot of extra holes in the bulkhead for nothing! So the project stalled for a few months while I, you know, sailed the boat! (I wasn't in any rush because finishing the installation starts the life-time clock of the RO membrane running. No sense wasting it.)
Eventually I started thinking more better... or at least three-dimensionally. That forward end of the starboard settee, where the boat starts getting narrow, is a small awkward space. How likely is it that a large awkward system could fit inside a small awkward space? What about if you flip it upside down and bolt it to the underside of the settee, where the locker is wide but otherwise useless! Plus it's right next to the through-hulls, waste lines could be plumbed to the lavatory drain, all below the waterline so everything should self-prime, the upholstery might make some sound insulation, and it won't drip on anybody's pillow!
It's a bit hard to photograph down in that little wedge-shaped space but now it's done and seems to work fine. There's just enough room left to store a supply of pre-filters and the cleaning chemicals. And most of the connections are even easily accessible for maintenance.
Back side view, looking forward. From left, control box, pre-filter housing, PS35 motor. Emergency pump handle lays below - need to make a secure keeper for that and the filter wrench...
So I cobbled together a control panel mostly from my lab parts bins, and set it into the front of the settee. I recessed the panel in the box so I won't kick it while staggering around in the salon. But I could make a door/cover, if it turns out to be needed.
As usual, all the devices fit neatly in the allotted space, but things got a little hairy when I added all the wires and tubes to connect it all together! D'Oh! I had to put in some 90° fittings to make it all fit. Possibly should have separated the electrical and plumbing bits a little better.
So, one problem with this is that it's piggy-backed on to the head through-hulls (in parallel with the lavatory and the heat pump (see previous post.) That intake isn't vey far down from the water line. When "rail down" on starboard tack, it might suck air. Happily, (three dimensions, man!) it's only about seven feet back to a spot where one could tee-into the engine strainer, and draw water from the deep port-side through-hull. Hmm, so I need another valve for this bypass line...
And I need to buy that "day tank." So, the project isn't "over with" but it's pretty much installed.
And the E29 has sufficient tankage for whatever.
