WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

The FONTUS water collector. This is a product currently under development that bears watching:




 Of course it would have to be tested at sea. But, could become standard equipment in every ditch bag or life raft if it works as good as this video shows. Especially if it can be scaled up.

PONDERING ABOUT WATER ON A HOT LAZY SUMMER MORNING

Just after returning back to the BIANKA's homeport mooring after a two week cruise I ran out of water. Both tanks were dry and my  Brita Water Dispenser had just a little bit left. I knew I would have to refill at least one of the water tanks. I had enough drinking water to at least make a cup of coffee and took it to the cockpit.  I was feeling lazy and the thought of having to dig out the fenders and lines rig them up and head for the dock seemed like to much work this hot summer morning. Not to mention the stress of docking single handed with wile harbor currents playing games with the keel. Checking the scene at the face dock the idea was moot anyway since a sport fisherman had already tied up in the spot I needed. The town dock at the other end of the harbor was another possibility. They had a twenty minute rule which would be enough to fill the water tanks but, it was the weekend and there was no telling how many boats were lined up waiting to use it. As I took another sip of coffee I had an AHA! thought...

A LEVITATING DINGY?

I'm currently taking a little break from getting BIANKA ready for launching with a little cruise on a 44 foot St. Francis catamaran in the Bahamas. The waters here in the Exumas are amazingly clear.

The clarity is so good  that when I took the photo below of Captain Adam at Staniel Cay heading off in the dingy for an ice run  it appeared to be levitating above the water. Even though it is just an optical illusion it still sounds like a neat idea:

GETTING THINGS BACK TO NORMAL:Pressurized Water System

After I removed the Paloma on demand water heater I was left with doing something with the water supply and hot water output hoses:

The sinks on board BIANKA have two ways to provide water. One is by foot pumps which is what I most often use. The other is a pressurized water system which requires an electric pump to provide the water. The Paloma water heater was hooked into this system. I thought I might be able to get away with just capping the supply hose. But, as I found out after I turned on the water pump the water back fed through the hot water outlet hose. So I would need to reconnect them now that I have removed the water heater. Two 1/2 inch elbows and a short piece of 1/2 inch hose allowed that to be easily done:

I did not like the idea of the hoses just floating there so I arranged for a little more secure mounting of them. I used a    Cable Tie Saddle Mount  and attached it to the bulkhead:

Then used a cable tie to secure it to the mount:

With the hose secure I turned on the pressurized water pump and everything work as before except I no longer was able to have hot water. But, I have come up with an alternative hot water system that I'll be showing in the near future.

PUMP IT UP: Repairing a FloJet 4300 Series Washdown Pump Part One

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Pump it up until you can feel it.

Pump it up when you don't really need it.

 Elvis Costello

At the end of last season I discovered two of the four electric pumps on board BIANKA did not work. They both were feed from the same circuit breaker but, do not operate at the same time. One was the Wash Down pump used to clean the anchor chain after it's been laying on mucky bottoms. The other was the Macerator pump that is used usually once a year on haul out after I rinse out the holding tank. Neither one would power up. Sounded to me like a power issue since both pumps were fed from the same circuit. Having two pumps fail at the same time seemed against the odds. Sounded to to be an easy fix. Most likely a power issue.  First I measured the voltage from the circuit breaker panel it read the nominal 12 volts. Well, then gotta be the switch that switches between which of the pumps will be energized. But, when I checked the switch it was good. Oh well. Looks like both pumps did fail at the same time. Since one pump was for the wash down and used every time I hoist the anchor and the other pump was for the macerator and really only used one time each year when cleaning and winterizing the holding tank for storage. I decide the wash down pump was the priority.

The wash down pump is a Flojet 4300 series pump. A 4305-143 to be precise and had been on the boat since I bought her in 1995. It had worked well until now. The pump is located in behind a panel the head area along with the pressure water pump and the shower sump pump:

Pretty easy to get to unlike the macerator pump which is buried under some cabinetry and hoses. Though because all the wiring was connected with crimped splices I had to cut the wires to remove the pump from the cabinet. But, I decided to rewire the pump with Anderson Powerpole connectors to make future removal of the pump and trouble shooting easier.

After removing the pump I looked for anything obvious that might have caused the failure:

Not seeing anything suspicious I followed red 12 volt lead that went into a small module on the pump and exited out the other side and connected to the motor. The is the pressure switch that shuts off the pump when the pressure reaches a certain level. Taking the cover off of this module exposed it's connections:

Nothing unusual but, I did notice a little melting and discoloration of the wire and some melting on the housing of the switch:

Well this certainly was worth investigating. The connections to the wires looked good but, when I took out my meter and measured across them I found a high resistance across the leads:

I measured 4 meg ohms not a totally open circuit but, high enough to prevent the pump  from operating. I decided to first remove the spade connectors clean the contacts to see if that improved the readings:

Having done that I still measured a high resistance. So I decided to remove the pressure switch module from the body of the pump:

I had no parts diagram of this part of the pump so I could not be sure how things were supposed to look. But, when I went back and measured across the leads of the pressure switch I read about three ohms so that seemed to be normal. I put the pressure switch module back on to the pump and reinstalled the pump back into the locker. After connecting the wash down hose I applied power and the pump began gushing out water. Ah, fixed I thought. I shut down the power put a nozzle onto the hose and fired up the pump again. I could hear the pump as it pressurized the hose and then shutdown like it should. But after opening the nozzle and relieving the pressure the pump still  failed to turn on.  So it looks like I'll need to do a little more troubleshooting but, before I do I will get a replacement pressure switch. Since that looks like where the problem is. Though the documentation shows there is not such part. It looks like I may need to order a whole upper housing. I'll be making a call into FloJet customer service to see if this is the case before I continue.

FOR  PART TWO OF THE PUMP REPAIR CLICK HERE

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COOL WATER

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"All day I face the barren waste without the taste of water,"

Cool Water

It been hot in the boatyard with the temperature just hovering around 90 degrees. Too hot in the middle of the day to work on installing the chain chain stopper on the forward deck. I was getting thirsty so my thoughts turned to water. Seemed like a good time to fill the smaller of the two water tanks on BIANKA so I could have some water on board for cleaning and washing up. While I was at it seems like a good time to clean the Brita 35530 Ultramax Dispenser and put a new   Brita replacement filter in it too.

I use this Brita for my drinking and cooking water on board BIANKA. It sits very nicely in a cubby in the galley area on board. Since it holds a little over a gallon one fill up can last me a few days. I have nice filtered water easily available which  is important during these hot days while working on the boat.

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A DOCKING WAKE UP CALL

I ran out of water last night. Both water tanks on BIANKA were now empty. Well, it looks like I'll have to take the boat to the dock for the first time since June. So when I awoke at around six am I made plans to head over to the dock and refill the water tanks. Normally, this would be a liesurely procedure. I would first have my usual Medaglia D'Oro Instant Espresso Coffee  along with a muffin or perhaps a Granola bar. But, there was an added urgency this morning. The winds were currently 7 to 10 knots out of the south but, they were expected to pick up to 15 to 20 with higher gusts as a cold front approaches. I wanted to be off the dock before they pinned me to the dock if I could help it. So I skipped my wake up coffee. In the cockpit I planned my approach to tie up to the face dock  of the marina. I even took into account the falling tide and wanted the bow to face the current as I docked. I thought about the logistics and which side to put the fenders on. I took out my dock lines and fenders and rigged them up on the side that I was sure was my plan. After they were rigged I went forward to drop off the mooring and then realized that everything was rigged on the wrong side for my plan.  So I had to re position everything again.
LESSON LEARNED: Next time take fifteen minutes and have your coffee before working on any plans or urgent ideas in the morning.

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE!

One of the nice things about having the world's first electrically propelled Nonsuch 30 is I no longer need to find or tie up at a fuel dock. This is a real good thing. Unfortunately, I still occasionally need to stop at a dock to top off the water tanks. Bob at BOAT BITS has come across a promising technology that may soon eliminate the need for sailors to even make diversions and stops to find a dock with water.

How does it work?

Each individual device would only process minute amounts of water, but a large number of them — the researchers envision an array with 1,600 units fabricated on an 8-inch-diameter wafer — could produce about 15 liters of water per hour, enough to provide drinking water for several people. The whole unit could be self-contained and driven by gravity — salt water would be poured in at the top, and fresh water and concentrated brine collected from two outlets at the bottom.

They've already tested it in nearby local waters:

So far, the researchers have successfully tested a single unit, using seawater they collected from a Massachusetts beach. The water was then deliberately contaminated with small plastic particles, protein and human blood. The unit removed more than 99 percent of the salt and other contaminants. “We clearly demonstrated that we can do it at the unit chip level,”

This technology certainly sounds promising not only for us sailors who want spend as little time looking for a place to find water but, for many other people in the world who need clean drinking water.