Water Collection System

[Blue Stocking]

Originally Posted by CaptForce

I suspect all decks are not the same!

--and most assuredly, not all roofs, but we talking boats here.

[Matt sachs]

So you think water should not be collected from the poop deck?

[Tim Godber]

Yes, I couldnt put it better!

[laforge24]

We have a raincollector on our Fountaine Pajot Lavezzi, but I don't see how to
put it up correctly without the wind blowing most of the water out???
the thing was made for this catamaran and has the water outlet in one of the corners which if I think I am right is at the front fixed to the genua, the other
end at the mast and the other two corners on either side of the boat?
But the wind blows the thing up far too much and uncomfortable at night!!
ANYBODY HAVE A CLUE OR SOME PHOTOOS!!
thanks

[ericoh88]

A good friend left PNW 25 years ago with a water maker. Sold it for half price in Fji. Lived off canned beer and soda. Water from the rain were for washing and shower. Every year he would clean out the stuff left in the tank. There was no filter.

When the dry season catches up, he would have to dinghy water from shore.

On another boat, a 40' 3 ply kauri center board would have an awning with funnel built into it. When it rains, the owner would route the hose to a jerry can first.

Anyway, I was told one boat owner who had one routed rain water into his tanks, left for shore. Rain came and fill up the boat to floorboard! lol. Don't know what happened to his automatic bilge pump.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by ericoh88

A good friend left PNW 25 years ago with a water maker. Sold it for half price in Fji. Lived off canned beer and soda. Water from the rain were for washing and shower. Every year he would clean out the stuff left in the tank. There was no filter.

When the dry season catches up, he would have to dinghy water from shore.

On another boat, a 40' 3 ply kauri center board would have an awning with funnel built into it. When it rains, the owner would route the hose to a jerry can first.

Anyway, I was told one boat owner who had one routed rain water into his tanks, left for shore. Rain came and fill up the boat to floorboard! lol.

Actually, many of us do not leave them set on automatic. If you have not installed a bilge alarm, you want to be in control of when the pump runs because you want to stay aware of the rate at which the boat takes on water. When you leave it set on automatic, you never know how much it runs. How often and for how long it runs is what leads to eventual failure. At least for us, it is a situation we want to stay on top of.

However, we do leave them on when we have to leave the boat for extended periods.

Ann

[roverhi]

For more than a year cruising French Polynesia caught rainwater from our awning. Never had to schlep water to the boat, never had a problem with the water though did periodically treat it with bleach, no filter.

There are 17,900 households living on catchment water on the Island of Hawaii. Bermuda households get there water from catchment. The houses are built with metal roofing and gutters to catch the water and send it to above ground catchment tanks on the Big Island, Bermuda houses are built with underground cisterns. A filter is a nice to have item and treating the catchment tank with chlorine periodically isn't a bad. Many of the people on the Big Island drink the water straight from the sky, to tank, to the tap with no precautions.

[JPA Cate]

roverhi,

You're right. People out here live on catchment, too, but some are slack with "normal" tank maintenance. They do get dirty, sometimes contaminated with dead bird bodies, or rats. It is well for them to be occasionally cleaned. But, with maintenance, the water's just fine. No worries, really. Friends here in Queensland, use their catchment water for their tea, and well water for the rest.

Ann

[Sailorman Ed]

Still an apropos subject. I would like to filter the rain water before going into our tanks. Seeing that the bimini is about 5 feet above tanks, is there a filter that will handle a decent flow with this little head pressure?
We left the first flow just flow into the scuppers to wash out the salt and occasional dirt/bid droppings that make it up there.

[SSgtPitt]

And a “Bump” to keep this going.....

[BigBeakie]

Originally Posted by Sailorman Ed

Still an apropos subject. I would like to filter the rain water before going into our tanks. Seeing that the bimini is about 5 feet above tanks, is there a filter that will handle a decent flow with this little head pressure?
We left the first flow just flow into the scuppers to wash out the salt and occasional dirt/bid droppings that make it up there.

Not sure it makes sense to filter the rainwater on the way into the tank. Depends what you mean by "filter"? If you mean strain out the big bits like flying fish, leaves, bird feathers, sure that is easy to put a grill/grate/ course strainer at the intake that is accessible and easy to clear. But that lets through most of the flow easily. Be sure to put in a Y valve that directs the flow overboard to allow the raincatcher surface to flush away the salt and dirt, before opening valve to rainwater tank(s).

But too fine a filter on the inlet will just restrict how much water to can capture from that passing rain shower, and in areas where rain is infrequent, that sort of defeats the purpose.

We have dedicated water maker and rainwater tanks. We can fill the rainwater with the watermaker if we have to (unlikely), but rainwater never goes in the RO tank.

The rainwater can be used for showers and boat washdown without filtering obviously, but just put in a household under-counter water filter in the galley if you want to/need to drink it, to be safe.

[wsmurdoch]

Our system is described in post 21 which I wrote in 2012. Since then we have added filtering, or really straining, before the water goes into the tanks. I sewed several socks, open at one end and closed at the other, 2" in diameter and about a foot long from no-see-um nylon netting. Just as they are, they slide over the end of a hose to catch things in the water as it comes out of the hose. In addition I cut 1" lengths from PCV pipe of a size that will enter, but not fall through, our deck fills. These are sewn into the open ends of two of the socks. They drop into the deck fills (It helps if the end of the sock is weighted with a small pebble.) and filter water running from the deck into the deck fills.

I tend to catch wood fibers from our unfinished teak, lint from the Sunbrella, sand, and fly's wings.

Bill

[thinwater]

You can learn a great deal about rain water capture from health department web sites in west Texas, Australia, and other countries where this is common and necessary practice.

• Keep the collection area clean, UV will do the rest.
• Filter anyway. The 1 micron Baja water filter (see Practical Sailor) is an excellent, low-cost solution.
• Chlorinate, and remove the chlorine downstream with carbon.

There is simply no reason to carry large quantities of bottled water. It reflects a failure of systems maintenance.


As an expereiment, I spent an entire season relying on rainwater. With these precautions, my tank remained as fresh as ever.

[R2boat]

Not sure if your Helia is all that different from our Lipari but we made up an easy one....our salon roof has a small gutter like area just inside of the eyebrow...this then ends just behind the mast. We took a plastic milk carton, cut out one side and installed a small thru hull/hose fitting on the other...connect hose and it is just a short run to the tank fill...it is duck tape in position presently but so far has worked great...