Category Archives: Watermaker

s/v Adventure: 7 Oct 2019

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Found and replaced some missing nuts and washers this morning on the engine. One set on one of the engine mounts had “rattled” off apparently, down inside the pan. Had to hunt with a flashlight and reach into the deep, dark recesses beneath the engine to retrieve them.

Had purchased a couple of sets of spares yesterday, and wound up using one of the new nuts. Found the other, can’t reach it at the moment, my arms don’t fit down there.

Tested the transmission levels today, started engine, brought her up to operating temperature, put the engine in gear and stressed it forward and backward… pushing water very well.

Shut down engine, and tested levels, and they are right.

I believe I’m losing transmission fluid through the oil cooler assembly at higher operating temperatures under pressure. It’s not a LOT at a shot, but it’s enough that after many hours, I need to add fluid.

I think I will end up having to replace the cooler (a double cooler set up).

Hopefully, we’re going to get our provisions together in a couple of days, take care of some things in the area like our storage locker, and a tire giving me fits, and then do a test run of the engine.

Might just come back, drop our temporary crew member off at the docks and kick off and keep going if we have everything ready for the trip by the time the weather is good enough to do an engine test run.

Watermaker:

Just ran the water maker. Last time was a nearly empty tank (a couple gallons left in it) on 28 September 2019. Filled the tank in about 5 minutes under three hours.

Today, we started the maker at 1350 hours local. The machine ran for 1 hour and 40 minutes and the tank “popped”, letting us know water was full. The tank makes a noise when it is full, I assume one of the sides bulging out slightly. JoAnne also observed noise at the air pressure relief behind her seat, and the over flow began flowing into the bilge.

So… 21gal/hr * 1.66666 hours = 34.99986 gallons of water

It took us 9 days to use 35 gallons of water from our tanks. That’s pretty average for us, when not taking showers on board (which is extremely rare for us to do). The calculation is for the amount of water produced per hour (nominal 21gph) and the time is the number of hours in decimal format for how long it actually took to fill the tank. So, 1 hour, 40 minutes is roughly 1.66666 hours. Multiplying those numbers gives me the quantity of water produced over the time period.

(At some point, I’ll calculate the exact amounts of water, gasoline, wattage used and probably soup up the solar panels a bit along with the generator! Actually, the solar isn’t used for the process, but, I like being able to keep the batteries charged using them, and I know the DC side uses almost 10 amps. So, that was almost 20 Amp hours!)

High pressure side ran at just under 700 psi

Low pressure side at 8 psi, and went up to 20 psi as the process continued.

A check of the filters shows they need to be pulled out and cleaned. I’ll use those a couple more times (after I clean them tomorrow and do a system flush with fresh water) and then when we arrive in clear water, I’ll swap the filters out for new ones. Not sure how long they can be used for before you are supposed to change them.

We did keep popping a breaker for the lift pump for some reason. But after I started up the high pressure pump it stopped. I assume the lift motor was working a bit too hard.

Electrical:

Today I ran the engine, mentioned above, and used the bow thrusters to check them, pushed bow out a bit. Noticed that the battery charger has kicked in, I assume due to the use of the thrusters. Also, as a result of the low pressure pump doing it’s thing. It draws about 10 amps while running.

The fridge draws five pretty constantly.

We also run several DC fans on warm days like today, so the power draw adds up. The system is currently charging at about 80% and it’s not “ready” yet, like normal.

I did check the batteries a couple of days ago, added water to them, and checked a few random cells for charge (they were good).

I also have replaced a double pole, double throw toggle on the battery meter, which I thought was broken, showing low readings on the meter. When I tested the output on my digital meter, it read normal (at 13.5vdc) so I assumed the wires or switch bad. Replaced several connectors, cleaned some connections and replaced the switch and things were fine.

Last night, I noted the meter was reading low again, and yet with a digitial meter, it was reading fine.

Checking things a few minutes ago, I noted the power system is charging, and the meter reading is normal, showing a charge on-going. The secondary (old) Xantrex meter still in the circuit is also showing 13.70 vdc, which means the system is charging.

Not sure yet if we have a flaky connection back in the battery bay or what yet. I’ll find it eventually though.

I’ll double check the voltages on the batteries, and probably test all the cells before we decide to do a shake down next week. Shake down will likely be next weekend or just before or after the weekend (to avoid the fishing vessels and the guys who don’t know how to drive their boats).

SeaWater Pro – Makin’ Water

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Making fresh water from sea or brackish water is turning out to be kind of fun.

Our water tank is getting low, so I fired up the water maker. This is only the third time we’ve run it for a good length of time, and figured it was time to make sure things work well.

We’re on Shore Power at the moment because we’re in the marina. Tide has hit high tide at about 8:15 this morning, and flowing out now. I was trying to get this done at high tide to prevent pulling in mud or silt from the floor of the ICW. The water is brackish.

So about 9:25 we fired up the rig, I adjusted things so it is creating water and running at 21 gpm. The contaminate level is at 110 most of the time so far.

We’re running it for slightly less than three hours today to fill the tank and to ensure no problems are found.

No leaks. No problems thus far. It’s been going for just under two hours. Should take three to fill the tank to capacity.

The ICW is flowing out right now at around 2.5 knots of current and I really wanted flowing water going past us. Helps eliminate standing muddy water and stuff floating near by the intake. Keeping a constant flow of water is a good thing.

Checking the strainer shows the incoming water is clear, nothing of note in it, no critters I can see and no debris or dirt.

The main filters are clear, with a small amount of “dirt” showing in the first filter (20 micro filter).

My only issue is that I don’t know the quantity of water in the tank. We normally fill with a hose or using water cans, and when we reach ‘full’ the tank will make a popping sound. I don’t think that is going to happen this time.

I suspect I might have to install a gauge of some sort or a see-through tube to the tank to let me know my levels. I’ll ponder that another time. I know though, when we hit “full” the vent will begin to vent the extra water into the bilge so that will be my indicator for the time being.

My friend Kevin, when I told him about the installation walked over to the garden hose by his boat and picked it up saying, “I have a water maker too”. Kevin has been sailing his whole life, and I know he probably understands the difficulties of getting fresh water in some places. Others know that throwing money at a problem offers a temporary solution, like just purchasing the water.

I prefer self-sufficiency over total dependence on others. Sure, I still have to have electricity, and to get it I have to run a generator. But a gallon of gas will run the generator for ten hours or so, producing 210 gallons of water if I ran it the whole time.

Gas (here) is about 2.89 a gallon. Water is free.

In the islands, gas is more, and the water isn’t free. Unless you catch it from the rain. Which we can also do. Right now, gas is about 1.20 dollars a liter in the Bahamas (roughly). Water is running from 6-7 dollars a day to as much as $20 to fill your tank. Since the hurricane went through, I don’t know what they are charging at the moment.

Options….. we all want options.

A gallon of gas in Bahamas is about $4.80 so, still slightly cheaper to produce the water using the generator than to purchase it and haul it back back forth in the dink to me. Less work too. I HATE pulling into marinas and running the engine constantly. So… to me, it’s a convenience thing.

As I’m typing this, we’re right at two solid hours of running the system. The noise isn’t too bad and the unit is under the settee. I open it up for air (motor can get warm) so it’s a little louder that I like, but tolerable.

We should have produced 42 gallons of water at this point, and my vents aren’t yet venting water, so that’s good. The bilge doesn’t have any water in it at the moment either. So that’s good too. Contaminants are at 117 ppm. Still good.

Just as a refresher here, pure sea water should produce fresh water, at about 200 ppm. Less than pure salt water will produce water at lesser numbers. (We have seen it from 65 – 120). I think the difference is whether the tide is rising or falling.

If rising, then mostly we will see fresh river water coming back into the ICW from the Cape Fear. As it rolls out again, it will be more saline from having mixed with the incoming sea water from the tide.

If we ran clean water through (that might be high contaminates) it should run much less than the 85 number above. The FDA says about 600 ppm is ok for human consumption. A chart is provided below.

What is the acceptable TDS level of drinking water?

By the way, our drinking water goes through a Seagull Carbon Filtration system at our galley sink. Most of the time the water coming out of the regular faucet is fine, has no smells and tastes ok. We use the filter system for the fresh water, just in case.

Our tanks (now singular) are treated about about every three months with enough bleach to sterilize the tank internally and the hoses. In general, I’ll open the tank faucet to allow water flow, run the hose into the input (on the deck) and run it for awhile to ensure flushing the tank. Then add the chlorine, and flush again in a couple of days. I usually flush most of that water through the bilge to keep it clean as well after a couple of days. Most of the chlorine is dissipated by then.

The water maker needs to have the system flushed every few days as well with fresh water, which is also run through a carbon filter to remove chlorine (and typically, I just connect a garden hose straight from the shore power pedestal to clean the filters and the Reverse Osmosis (RO) filter.

At exactly 3 hours in (I knew the tank was almost empty) the system started blowing water into the bilge, indicating the tanks are full. I brought the system pressure down and turned off the main pump motor, allow the lift pump to continue for a few months, then powered it down. Now, I have the garden hose attached to the carbon input filter, and am flushing the RO out.

So, there you have it. Our first solid, real production of water from the ICW with our new water maker, filling the tanks, tasting, drinking it and using it. I’ll let you know if it kills me. HA!

The water, by the way, coming through the system is clear, sweet and has no smells or odd tastes. I consider this a success.

June 2018

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At the beginning of June, JoAnne and I had to make the long, arduous journey across 4000 miles.  Ok, well, 1980 miles to Colorado and back again to North Carolina.

We had the annual doctor’s appointments to go do once again, post chemo/cancer checkups for her, and a quick heart check up for me.

We arrived on Monday evening, 11 June at my youngest son’s house.  We were exhausted after stopping in Kentucky to hit a family reunion, and then in Missouri to spend the night with some friends before traveling on to Colorado.

The next morning we made it downtown to the hospital to do blood work for JoAnne.  We had a bunch of appointments scheduled throughout the week.  But, Tuesday night would become “Early Wednesday Morning of the Storm from Hell”.

At about 2:00 AM on Wednesday, the sky opened up.  It began to rain.  Then small hail fell.  When the first large piece of hail hit the roof, I thought we were being bombed.   Indeed, we were.  By the sky.

Hail the size of softballs began to pelt the neighborhood.  I hear my son yell from his room and made my way there, amid the explosive sounds of massive chunks of ice hitting the front and roof of the house.  His large windows in his bedroom were gone, rain and hail pouring into the broken panes.  We grabbed some tarps to throw over the inside to help prevent too much more damage and I managed to get JoAnne out of the room as our windows shattered.

Going down stairs and outside on the protected front porch I observed total chaos.  Car and trucks in the area were being smashed to pieces by the hail.  Trees (new neighborhood, so very small ones) were being stripped of leaves and then of their branches.  The front yard was covered in hail, some of it the size of tennis balls, all the way up to softball sized hail.

We were up until nearly four in the morning waiting for the storm, rain and wind to subside.  I don’t think there were reported tornadoes but the cell certainly was powerful enough to have dropped one.  I checked as best I could in the darkness for wall clouds, funnels, and so on without venturing out and getting killed by hail.

I watched as the rear window on our car was hit directly with a large hailstone, which at first I thought exploded.  Later when the hail ceased, I went out to check the damage and it had been the window shattering into a million tiny pieces.  The glass was scattered from the car to the street and sidewalks.  There was glass in the front seats.  It had literally exploded.

Since we only had liability on the vehicle, insurance wouldn’t even look at it.  I ended up buying a car from my son (which was a spare after he’d purchased a new one) and gave the other to my daughter (who had the time and ability to work on replacing the damaged windows, mirrors and other parts that were badly messed up).

Fortunately, my son’s vehicles were all in the garage.  Every, single car that was sitting outside suffered minor to severe damage, some vehicles completely totaled.   The fences in back looked like someone had shot holes through it was shot gun slugs.  Roofs on neighboring homes had been punctured all the way into the ceilings down below, the hail was hitting so hard!

To my knowledge no one was injured, but I’m pretty certain some cows out around the area probably were killed that night.   I’m sure that animals suffered greatly out there.

We needed to borrow my son’s car the next day to get to the rest of the appointments, and I ended up simply buying the car from him to fulfill our schedule over the next two weeks.  All-in-all, most things went well.

We did find that JoAnne’s CA-125, the blood work to check for tumors, had more than doubled, which gave us all a scare.  A CT scan was ordered and they found no sign of cancer.  However, the doctor wants up back in September.  There’s more to this story, but I’m not going to fill it in at present.  I will mention there are other things that can cause an elevation in the CA-125 numbers, and we believe at the moment that something did just that.  We plan to see some local doctors here in NC to have more tests performed to make the final determination about going back to Colorado in September.

I discovered I have a slight leak in my “New to me Heart Valve” that was put in in May 2015.  I wonder if they had a 10 year warranty program?  Probably not, so perhaps I can find something like “Leak Stop” I can drink…. perhaps more bacon?  I dunno.

On a better note, we managed to get back to North Carolina unscathed by any more freak storms, after stopping back in Missouri and spending several wonderful days with our friend Mike and Cindy.  We also stopped in Ashville and visited with a couple of friends there, did some beer tastings in some of the breweries and then finally headed home to Southport and our ship, Adventure.

Upon arrive, I checked our batteries, as I’d left them on the smart charger (the new one I put in after the fire) and they were in excellent shape, not over heated, had not lost much water from the cells, and the status was very good.  The boat however, needed a decent washing again.  Mold appears on the outside often.

I went back to work about the 9th of July at the marina here, and found I’d not forgotten anything I needed to remember…. except to get up for work in the mornings.  I wasn’t late, but might have been had I not had JoAnne wake me up to tell me my alarm was going off (for fifteen minutes).

Now, JoAnne has some appointments scheduled here to go in for a new check up locally, and we’re going to be making a decision about Colorado or Bahamas soon.

In the mean time, a few days ago, I managed to drop my phone into a sink, with water running.  It was a klutzy move on my part, as I was trying to grab a pair of sunglasses I’d dropped, fumbled those, and smacked the phone sideways and into the sink.  I didn’t catch either the glasses OR the phone.  DOH!

I immediately grabbed it out, shook the water away from the charging port and earphone jack and we removed the battery as quickly as possible.  Still, the phone’s mic and the Home button ceased functioning.  I opened it up and dried it (It wasn’t really damp inside anyway) and placed it, you guessed it, into a “bag of rice”, purported to help dry phones due to rice’s ability to absorb moisture.  I don’t really think it worked.  But the phone DID seem to work better the next day.

Yesterday, we drove to a place in Wilmington to have the phone repaired.  They ran it through a drying machine (for three hours) and apparently attempted to “repair” some of it. They got the Home button working, but broke the other two buttons.  The microphone is still dead.  And they supposedly backed up my data, but deleted all my pictures.  All 2000 of them, including the hail damage and my favorite images of JoAnne (Dummy me, I’d forgotten to back it up before I left!)

Grrr… Well, on the way back… the car started acting up.  We hit some major puddles on the way back and things got wet.  I suspect the electronics in the car (I’m really having issues with electronics and water, huh?) got wet and when we arrived here in Southport, to stop at a store, the car wouldn’t start back up.

It growled funny at us and eventually, after five or six attempts it started up.

However, there was another sound.  Coming from the air conditioner unit.  We believe the bearings on the device are shot.  We’re supposed to drive to Myrtle Beach today for a concert, but apparently, that’s a bad idea.  Instead we’re riding with friends and I’ll get parts on order for the car on Monday.

So the last two months have been “One thing or another”, as usual for the “Adventurers”.

One last thing before I go.

We have been discussing a “Watermaker” for the boat.  We’ve done the pros and cons, including the costs/return benefits and realize we probably wouldn’t ever save enough money making our own water but still want the ability to be independent of having to buy it in islands or have to purchase a dock for the night to get water.  We have been staying here in Southport on a dock and DO have access to water, which is great.  And for the last 5 days, we’ve had enough rain to fill our tanks several times, but setting up a catchment without a real need isn’t fun or convenient.

Over the course of our research, we found several places and most of them were $5000 USD and up.  There are a lot of folks who are DIYers and build their own stuff.  While I have the ability to do so, I usually don’t have the time to sit and measure, design and find all the parts.

In comes a company called Seawater Pro and owner, Michael.  He offers a “kit” that consists of all the pieces you need, including a lift pump, the gauges, and hoses, the reverse osmosis filter, prefilters and the pressure pump required to get you started.

The only “con” to this system is, it’s in pieces and runs on AC power (120 volts) because it uses an inexpensive pressure washer system as the pressure pump.  That means AC power is required (something most people don’t have unless they 1) have generation, 2) are on a dock, 3) have a heavy inverter – mine is dead now, due to the fire a couple of months back) and it just doesn’t seem “easy” to use.

However, I’ve spoken to Michael on the phone a couple times and on FB with one of the representatives from the company and was convinced that this might be our best, and cheapest option.  So I went ahead and discussed this with Michael at https://seawaterpro.com/ and decided to purchase the kit.

That will be the subject of an upcoming blog entry in a few weeks I hope, sooner if I get the car running and my phone back to 100%.  So, stay tuned for more on the water maker, because I will feel better being able to rinse out my bathing suit with fresh water, in the Bahamas come November and December this year!

(and shower, if I want…. )

More to follow on the Watermaker.

Here is a video for anyone interested in checking it out.  https://youtu.be/6SYHVs-uZE0

(By the way, I am sorry about no pictures of the hail