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From: (no name) (no email)
Date: Sat Mar 18 2006 - 07:22:29 EST
In a message dated 17/03/2006 23:41:46 GMT Standard Time,
writes:
Hi Philip,
Sorry about the missing info. We're trying to get the house on the
market and I'm a bit "fried" most of the time.
First the URL for the towed unit is :
http://www.yachtwatermaker.com/. I'm thinking it is about half the
cost of anything else and that is attractive but I'm also thinking it
would be a very nice very large fish lure. A couple $k plus is a lot
for a fishing lure. ;-) However it does have a handle to work it
manually and an optional 12v motor. Could be a good deal.
There will mostly be the two of us on board plus a cat or two. The
tank is about 120 gallons and we probably won't need more than 20
gallons per day and hopefully less than 10. Someone likes long
showers but that might change once the water runs low. >:-}
A friend of ours is a broker and he recommends the Spectra. They are
standard on a multi that he sells and has high praise for it.
Apparently another manufacturer in Europe, after seeing that boat,
changed their standard to include the Spectra unit.
(BTW, if anyone here is in the San Diego area or is coming to this
area to buy a boat, I'd be very happy to recommend this guy. From my
perspective he is the most honest, straight forward broker I have
ever come across. And no, we didn't buy our boat from him. We did,
however, bend his ear a few times and there was no charge even though
he knew he was not getting a commission on the sale. He seems to be
one of the truly good guys in the business.)
So far, from the info I've received here, personally, and elsewhere,
I'm leaning toward the Spectra. Service, reliability are very
important. Nice to know that they need to be used at least every
other day or so though. I didn't know that. Web searches have had
mixed results. I wonder if these guys really care how their site
looks to "visitors" who have little time to plod through their site.
Spectra is the one to go for - though i preferred the older models (rather
than the new modular units) where you control all the functions yourself. The
twin pump option is good as when you need water faster you can get twice as
much output by running two feed pumps at twice the AH cost of course. I don't
think there is any doubt if you look at Gals/AH Spectra wins also the Clark
Pump has a Lifetime Guarantee and all the other bits are relatively low tech
engineering. I am told you can buy the feed pumps at Home Despots for about
a quarter of the price of a Spectra one so i would check that one out and
take a spare (or two) if you are going sailing to far away places.
Something else that has been mentioned is the possible addition of a
"day tank" sort of thing that could be used to put the "new" water
into first and then put into the general water tank. That way, if the
unit goes bad, salty or brackish water doesn't contaminate all the
water. Seems like a prudent thing to do. Any comments?
well, since you will be monitoring the output and checking the salinity as
the watermaker starts up and outputting that water via a three way valve to the
sink and into a jug to measure the salinity - you should not need to do
this. I am sure you can get inline salinity measurement gauges too if that was
a worry - personally never checked the salinity after the first 10 mins of
running when the output line was switched over to the tanks. I suppose it
would be prudent to have 20 gals of water in say 5 gallon jugs as an emergency if
you are going to be into long ocean passages other than that i don't see the
need to split your water storage into bulk and day tankage.
Thanks for the info. Keep it coming.
Rick
regards
David
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