To Schenker or not to Schenker ?

[Falbala60]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

Which watermaker do you have?

Aquabase ESW601 , very satisfied, 3 buttons... Start, Stop, Rince ... very easy.
Operating in charter fleet since nearly 2 years in Bahamas. Because each week the boat is filled with "marina water" (watermaker only operated at sea) we added a SeaGull filter to avoid filling the boat with 50 gal of water bottles.



My son is working for H2O (he was in Sales and now is VP Purchasing) a manufacturer of watermaker plants for cities, he came on our Lucia for one week and said "Your water from the tank is perfect, you don't need the Seagull filter for drinking water, but I am a mechanical designer addicted to the Murphy's law... Yes a Seagull !


When a captain was sailing her, we receive only good comments about our watermaker.

[nfbr]

Cost calcs spreadsheet attached

[pguillemin]

try to get a A/ C WM ; Bit heavier and need more power but peace of mind ; Large 3 phases pumps are much quieter on the HP side ; Water maker of Florida or HEM or Sea Recovery ; You run them thousands of hours ;;

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by pguillemin

try to get a A/ C WM ; Bit heavier and need more power but peace of mind ; Large 3 phases pumps are much quieter on the HP side ; Water maker of Florida or HEM or Sea Recovery ; You run them thousands of hours ;;

Does a small efficient watermaker not provide peace of mind?

[pguillemin]

Hello ; Dont know if a DC unit will provide peace of mind ; ;; What I know is running yachts for a living ; WM are running many hours a day , people , washers , deck wash , toilets etc and the DC or belt driven units seems to fail after a while ; An A/C unit with a good filtration system will run forever ; I had very good luck with the systems I mentioned ;

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

We have a Spectra Newport 700. Around 100 liter/hour.
The big size is great.

One reason is that if you are in a dirty bay, you have to go to sea for cleaner water for a shorter time.

Furthermore, when sailing a cat above 3-4 knots your watermaker will suck air, and that is not good for watermakers. Recently, we sailed from one dirty bay to another dirty bay, so we had to make water underway. We sailed downwind without sails. This kept the speed at 3-3.5 knots. Good to have 100 l/hour then.


The feature of automatic flushing is great. We are now stuck in Europe due to Coronavirus and can't go back to the boat. It is not pickled, and flushing automatically every 5 days. We have sometimes done this for 2 1/2 months. Hope we can get back soon.....



However the Spectra is a complicated and expensive machine. When we bought the boat in 2014, this 11 year old Spectra turned about to be almost destroyed by the "professional" service in various countries. I had to rebuild it completely over the course of some years to get it back to factory spec. Total effort around 40 full days. Now I know almost everything about it. And the repair was much cheaper than a new one.

It is complicated and very technical, and more parts means more failures. OK if you are a technician yourself. Expensive and very frustrating when you depend on people fixing it for you.



Alternatively: If you put 1500-2000 W of solar on your boat, and are in the tropics, you have so much power that you can also manage with an extremely simple energy-wasting standard watermaker, which will almost never fail. But much less liters per watt.
Inverter, AC motor, Cat or other 3-cylinder pump. Look on the internet for "build your own watermaker". Even if you don't build one, you learn a lot from that article.

It will be noisier. (The Spectra is quiet)



The Schenker has smaller pumps, which are converted fresh water pumps running at increased pressure. I understand they have wear, just like the Spectra's Shurflo pumps. Our Spectra Newport 700 has an AC motor with longer-life vane pump from Procon. A friend with a Schenker is studying how to convert his Schenker to a similar pump, to avoid the pump wear issues. I would suggest you to enquire about the pump wear issue, I have it just from hearsay.


By the way, this same friend has an interesting trick. The brine water goes out through a filter housing IN REVERSE. He flushes his used filters while making water!


Learn to know and love your watermaker!

[Jimmyhenry]

We have a Schenker 35. 12 volt. Uses 9 amps when there is no wind or solar. Brilliant. Now 8 years old. Had to replace the membrane and O rings as we were on the hard for a year and did not set it up correctly.
Pete

[SSgtPitt]

Originally Posted by moctrams

Where in hell do you berth a 52' catamaran? Seems not what a real sailor would own. A floating hotel for the rich?

Since 2015 this Wonderful and Most Helpful fellow sailor has made 18 posts. I didn’t take the time to review his posts but I did review his profile and all the great things he’s done and helped us with......it would be nice if we could block ass hats from future posts.

[Privleoplag]

Originally Posted by Jef & Marin, Netherlands

By the way, this same friend has an interesting trick. The brine water goes out through a filter housing IN REVERSE. He flushes his used filters while making water!

Learn to know and love your watermaker!

Hmmm, I like that idea.

[tgrimmett]

I looked hard at the Schenker Zen 30 a year ago, partly because we were in Italy, and it got good reviews from local installers. But I got spooked by some of the comments from the ARC and others, including concerns about customer service, although from this thread it sounds like that has turned better. And at that time, I didn't see a lot of reviews on the Zen specifically. Our objective was a simple, DC powered unit that we could run on solar. I spend enough hours on the water fixing what breaks; I didn't want one loaded down with automatic this and that. We ended up going with the Spectra Ventura 200T and with one year of experience, we've been very happy with it. Granted it is more expensive, but we are hoping it will last longer. It's also a small footprint, and helped us save room by going under one of the floorboards (Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 440). Like the earlier comment, not all watermakers are the same for energy efficiency. If you calculate liters/amp (assuming 12v), you'll see a wide variation. Our Spectra (and the Zen 30) are just over 3 liters/amp. The Desalator and many others are around 1 ltr/amp. An important metric especially if you are wanting to leverage solar.

[Firestorm]

I have been looking at Spectra 150C and the Shenker Zen 30 for a while now. I like that Spectra provides PDFs of the installation and operations manuals on their website. I can also get firm price quotes very easily. I have not found Shenker to be as transparent. I'm still waiting for quotes (even though I have requested same from two dealers). I have also requested access to installation and operations manuals so that I can review the ease of install and operations - again with no luck (this is a show stopper for me). While Shenker looks interesting, I keep thinking "why is it so difficult to get the information I need to make a purchase decision?" Looks like I will be going with Spectra....

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by Firestorm

I have been looking at Spectra 150C and the Shenker Zen 30 for a while now. I like that Spectra provides PDFs of the installation and operations manuals on their website. I can also get firm price quotes very easily. I have not found Shenker to be as transparent. I'm still waiting for quotes (even though I have requested same from two dealers). I have also requested access to installation and operations manuals so that I can review the ease of install and operations - again with no luck (this is a show stopper for me). While Shenker looks interesting, I keep thinking "why is it so difficult to get the information I need to make a purchase decision?" Looks like I will be going with Spectra....

You're making the best choice.

[Davo1404]

Originally Posted by Firestorm

I have been looking at Spectra 150C and the Shenker Zen 30 for a while now. I like that Spectra provides PDFs of the installation and operations manuals on their website. I can also get firm price quotes very easily. I have not found Shenker to be as transparent. I'm still waiting for quotes (even though I have requested same from two dealers). I have also requested access to installation and operations manuals so that I can review the ease of install and operations - again with no luck (this is a show stopper for me). While Shenker looks interesting, I keep thinking "why is it so difficult to get the information I need to make a purchase decision?" Looks like I will be going with Spectra....

Are Shenker made in Italy? Maybe Covid 19 has something to do with them not responding?

[Tellie]

No watermaker is perfect. It's always wise to do your research and ask the people in the business what they think. Most of them that I know are sailors and power boaters themselves and have a lot of experience they are glad to share. Even the cheap watermakers are not cheap. They all have pros and cons that apply differently to different types of people and their different types of cruising. What works for one boater doesn't always work for another. Unfortunately, like many things when looking for a cheap price, "Caveat emptor" is your friend.

[nfbr]

By my calcs above cost per 1000 litres varies from $174 to $2.40, depending on source of power, quantity of water consumed and model of watermaker

Total Cost is worth considering.