Making Water in Harbor?

[GILow]

Having once gone out in my kayak immediately after a rainstorm, I will never run my watermaker even close to shore, let alone in a harbour.

Some of the things I saw floating around that day still haunt me in my sleep.

[waterman46]

In theory an organic molecule, which is very large compared to salt, will not pass through an RO filter.

Forget the specs on filters for a moment. Would anyone admit that an aging filter can have a few holes that could be larger than the spec or the filter housing could leak raw water into the product water, bypassing the filter itself? In either case, you might get TDS readings in spec but still have some much larger organic molecules that made it through the leakage points.
This is only a hypothesis. Perhaps I am wrong, and that any leakage of raw water around the filter large enough to be a health threat would give unacceptably high TDS readings.

BTW I have a Spectra watermaker, and the first filter housing they supplied back in 1999 had a single O ring at each end to separate very high pressure raw water from the product water. Replaced this one a few years ago due to cracks in the metal around the high pressure ports, and the new design has two O rings at each end (could be wrong, this is what I recall). Maybe someone discovered a need for the second O ring.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by GILow

Having once gone out in my kayak immediately after a rainstorm, I will never run my watermaker even close to shore, let alone in a harbour.

Some of the things I saw floating around that day still haunt me in my sleep.

Its a good idea not to make water after a rain storm and its a good idea to make water on an incoming tide if you are in a harbor.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Hey hey hey. Greeting from Spain.


A sewage outlet in nearly every marina.



Maybe you meant most Nordic EU countries?


barnakiel
Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain

sydney water has deteriorated dramatically in last couple years. Once swimmable, now only hardcore adventurers swim risking water borne disease and lifetime side effects.

I will never again make water there, or swim.

add sydney to list next to spain.

[RaymondR]

It's amazing what goes into sewer systems, including very nasty industrial pollutants in some places.

Years ago I read, or saw on TV, an article on increases in drug usage and wondered where they got reliable statistics from. I discovered that they get it from the analysis of sewer discharges which they also test for human pathogens and parasites. Just the yuck factor would keep me from water making in a harbour or marina.

[Chotu]

Manatee Man had this one right.

Straight from the Culligan reverse osmosis information website. Things reverse osmosis filters don't filter out:

Pesticides
Herbicides
Many other agricultural treatment products like fungicides
Some dissolved gasses, like hydrogen sulfide
Certain organic compounds
Chlorine — RO can remove various quantities of chlorine, but there is a possibility that the average home RO filter may not have the capacity to capture all the chlorine present in water, though this will largely depend on the chemical’s concentrations in the water supply.

And while reverse osmosis water filters will reduce a pretty wide spectrum of contaminants such as dissolved salts, Lead, Mercury, Calcium, Iron, Asbestos and Cysts, it will not remove some pesticides, solvents and volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) including:

Ions and metals such as Chlorine and Radon
Organic chemicals such as Benzene, Carbon tetrachloride, Dichlorobenzene, Toluene and Trihalomethanes (THMs)*
Pesticides such as 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, 2,4-D and Atrazine.



This has me rethinking my whole water plan. Maybe more tankage only to be used when staying put and dump the tanks for travel.

I'd think making water anywhere near civilization is not an acceptable health risk. Seems carbon filtered tap water is a better health alternative for drinking purposes. Maybe watermaker for the rest of the water use. Maybe just a separate drinking water and house water system is in order.

[Sailmonkey]

I think a definition of a harbor is in order as well.

An isolated anchorage in the Bahamas? Ok.

Key Biscayne.....situational.

Galveston.....no.

Add an ease/risk factor of gathering shoreside water as well. We primarily got a watermaker because the shore water in the places we wanted to go is notoriously awful.

[chrisr]

gee, some of you guys must crusie in sh1ty places !

we regularly use our w/m in anchorages. only very rarely are we somewhere we'd consider it not advisable and in such case we get outa there pretty quickly and go somewhere else

muddy water will clog the pre-filters a bit too quickly, but otherwise : never had any problems

my advice : if you're worried about making water, you are in the wrong neck of the woods !

cheers,

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Ah... Ok. I think I'm not clear on the definition of a harbor actually. Lol

So for this advice people give about not running it on a harbor, it means don't run it at a dock or in a mooring field or in a stagnant body of water basically?

There are lots of harbours that have really fresh water in them due to tidal flow in/out. Point Judith Harbor of Refuge comes to mind. The small harbor on Block Island. Provincetown harbor. Camden Harbor.

I always took this to mean a busy commercial harbor or marina.

Biscayne bay depends a lot on where you are hanging out.
- North end between the cruise port and seaquarium, I might be hesitant.
- If you are on the east side away from built up areas, it probably doesn't apply.

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

What's wrong with good old fashioned tap water? Been filtered, treated, tested and certified. In many cases it is cleaner, better for you and way way way cheaper than bottled water.

Depends upon what country you’re in.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Chotu

This has me rethinking my whole water plan. Maybe more tankage only to be used when staying put and dump the tanks for travel.

I'd think making water anywhere near civilization is not an acceptable health risk. Seems carbon filtered tap water is a better health alternative for drinking purposes. Maybe watermaker for the rest of the water use. Maybe just a separate drinking water and house water system is in order.

Having bigger tanks certainly won't hurt, especially if they're configured so it's easy to only use part of the capacity. There's no reason you couldn't use carbon filters on the watermaker input or output to remove organics, however. Whether that makes sense vs just getting water from shore probably depends on where you're cruising.

[Manateeman]

Chotu. Thank you for your post. I apologize for the lecture. Sincerely apologize.
For all the other sailors. As I posted. Reverse Osmosis is a wonderful technology.
Use it wisely. Maintain your equipment. Think - is there runoff from industry or agriculture. Why not just play it safe and go offshore.
Can carbon filters help. Absolutely. They are fantastic for trapping bad stuff.
Clean your membranes. They are not super expensive to replace. It’s difficult to know when. RO does not pass bacteria or virus particles but I read a science paper describing how bacteria managed to grow, inside the membrane. Yikes.
Probably the result of poor service or improper cleaning.
Lastly, a general caution.
Marine microbes are highly evolved and can cause a nasty infection. Physicians only have a limited number of choices to stop them. Google Steven Johnson
Syndrome. If you ignore that cut, or don’t want to wash out every orafice after diving and the little buggers go wild inside you...don’t count on being saved.
Talk to your doctor before sailing off away from modern medicine. Please.
Happy trails to you.
Mark, an old manatee

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Manateeman

Chotu. Thank you for your post. I apologize for the lecture. Sincerely apologize.
For all the other sailors. As I posted. Reverse Osmosis is a wonderful technology.
Use it wisely. Maintain your equipment. Think - is there runoff from industry or agriculture. Why not just play it safe and go offshore.
Can carbon filters help. Absolutely. They are fantastic for trapping bad stuff.
Clean your membranes. They are not super expensive to replace. It’s difficult to know when. RO does not pass bacteria or virus particles but I read a science paper describing how bacteria managed to grow, inside the membrane. Yikes.
Probably the result of poor service or improper cleaning.
Lastly, a general caution.
Marine microbes are highly evolved and can cause a nasty infection. Physicians only have a limited number of choices to stop them. Google Steven Johnson
Syndrome. If you ignore that cut, or don’t want to wash out every orafice after diving and the little buggers go wild inside you...don’t count on being saved.
Talk to your doctor before sailing off away from modern medicine. Please.
Happy trails to you.
Mark, an old manatee

This has always been a big concern. The marine microbes, as well as the everyday microbes have become problematic with over prescription of antibiotics.

My ex nearly lost her finger to some microbes. The doctors were stumped after trying all the different antibiotics. So, I took to learning all about these microbes and what environments they can and cannot survive in. I settled on ruining the pH they need to live. All of modern medicine couldn't safe her finger (amputation was next), but opening the wounds and soaking in vinegar on an hourly basis for until her finger was all pruned up and saved it. We just kept hitting hem with a deadly acidic environment. Finger is as good as new.

So now, preemptively, I wash all wounds out with vinegar. Even these awful outer ear infections I get when it's too humid and I'm too run down.

Vinegar destroys all microbes. We have both a cooking container of it and a medical container.

Figured this out at least a decade ago and have never had another infection. Except a throat infection community acquired. Vinegar is too harsh on the teeth/lungs to gargle with. So, I chew a clove of garlic every hour or teo for that one. It's a little less caustic. That definitely clears bacterial and I've had great luck clearing what I think was a viral throat infection with it too. It does have some antiviral properties.

In any case, I take no chances with microbes. All the pain in the world soaking wounds in vinegar doesn't compare to the horror of a large infection or sepsis. So that's what we do. Take the pain up front.

A little off topic but this has been a good thread. I'm learning a lot. Thought watermakers caught everything. I'm surprised they don't. Starting to wonder if they work more like HEPA filter than a strainer now.

[teneicm]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

A little respect, please!
LittleWing77

That goes both ways. The initial comment was unnecessarily confrontational. You won't get people to modify their behavior by yelling at them and treating them like a child/criminal.

Anyway, our rule of thumb is that I need to clearly see the bottom of my rudder (~5.5 feet down) before I will consider making water. We also always try to make water starting no sooner than 1/3 way into an incoming tide. If possible we try to avoid busy/city harbors due to the vessel discharge and possible sewage discharge.

[lwaugaman]

We have an FCI watermaker. It has a automated feature that flushes the membrane and filters weekly. I was slightly uneasy to leave the fresh water pump on when we are away from the boat, but I like that the watermaker is flushed regularly.

The boat is moored in a yacht basin where I probably wouldn't swim (or make water), but I'm ok with flushing the watermaker.