The Tale of the Water Maker
The Water Maker is a critical piece of hardware on a self sufficient boat as you can only carry so much fresh water and it is absolutely critical for life.
The water maker on SV Unladen Swallow is a basic Reverse Osmosis device that relies on a High Pressure water pump and RO membranes to produce fresh water. It is more energy intensive than more expensive and complicated versions, but it has only a few moving parts and is simple to maintain as a result.
2021 - The beginning of our love/hate relationship with this system
When we went to re-commission the water maker that came with the boat, we discovered it had not been properly pickled and was badly bio-fouled. This means it was full of black gunk that was likely decomposed plankton and other biomatter. This created a very Sulphur order in the product water.
We chose to replumb the whole thing, but this led to other issues including choosing the wrong material for the high pressure hoses. Enter Sea Water Pro.
Sea Water Pro – Ft Lauderdale, FL
Sea Water Pro makes a commercial version the type of basic water maker the boat was equipped with. Since we were already in South Florida, we reached out to them and had new high pressure hoses made, added a 2nd Reverse Osmosis membrane and bought a new control panel for the whole system.
We started to install everything and when we went to use it, the lack of a working Generator became the next sticking point. The water maker is now on hold til the Lithium battery upgrade in the Summer of 2022.
2022 - The Saga continues
With the Lithium upgrade, we have enough power to run the water maker without the GenSet. But we decided we needed a good control panel so a friend 3-D printed a nice panel frame and that is now installed. The picture below is a generic watermaker panel. For now, we have a working watermaker.
2023 - We might have over pressurized it - the RO Membranes are not working properly
The watermaker membranes are likely compromised as the TDS count is too large for the pressures being used. The 15amp breaker is also tripping at about 800 PSI, so we’ve purchased a larger breaker.
Jun 2023 – We are in Curacao now and likely have some time to kill so we will come back to this one.
Oct 2023
The new breaker allowed us to run the pump at a higher pressure – but now the original wire is likely too small a gauge – it was getting HOT to the touch – so we updated it. We can now run the motor up to over 1000 PSI.
The TDS count is still high, so we will be troubleshooting this further. Having said that, the salinity here is quite high so I will be comparing our results with other boats to see what else we may be missing.
We will be acquiring new membranes once we get back to St Thomas, but for now we can produce water that is OK for Hygiene and can bring water from shore via Jerry can for Drinking and cooking needs.
2024 - New Membranes (and Likely a new HP Pump)
We have started to notice a water leak at the HP Water pump so that will need to be replaced. We are going to replace the membranes and the pump as part of the 2024 yard period.
Well that was the plan ... Hurricane Beryl interrupted that plan.