Resources

One of the more challenging aspects of cruising in a small boat is making limited resources last until they can be replenished. Food, fuel, water, propane, and battery storage are primary resources that have to be carefully monitored on a trip like this. You can turn fuel into battery storage with the alternator, or battery storage into water if you have a desalinator. And you can move the boat without fuel if you have wind and sails, but regardless of how you trade resources off, they are constantly dwindling. Entropy always wins.

I've put some effort into improving our hand in the resource game over the last few years. I installed a couple of removable solar panels with charge controllers. I retrofitted the nonfunctional wind generator and installed a charge controller for it. I replaced the engine alternator with one that produces a higher output. I improved the fuel filtration, installed water filtration, made multiple repairs to the desalinator, and installed a salt water foot pump in the galley for washing dishes.

In spite of all that investment of time and money, we find ourselves losing the resource game when it comes to fresh water. Regrettably, this is a familiar story. In Alaska several years ago, we had to curtail one leg when the fresh water tanks didn't get filled properly or we used more than we thought we were using. The cause wasn't clear, but regardless, we've learned how to be more frugal, learned how to use less water.

We started out this leg with 110 gallons in the boat's fresh water tanks and then, with about a third of that remaining, I reluctantly decided to try to make more water with the desalinator. I say reluctantly because the desalinator on this boat has a sorted history. Every time I try to use it, something fails. Pressure sensors, then the salinity sensor, then a cracked membrane vessel end cap. Each time I got it working, I tested it in Puget Sound and it worked great, then when I wanted to actually make fresh water, it failed anew.

And the thing about reverse osmosis desalinators is that they have to be flushed with fresh water to keep them functional, so it doesn't just fail to make water, it costs water. You have to run it for twenty minutes to make up the water you lose before you begin to make ground. If I'd been able to run the desalinator for six hours as intended, I'd have made 45 gallons and paid five gallons. Instead we just paid five gallons. And then, not wanting to have nothing to show for that five gallons, I worked on the problem hoping to resolve it and paid another five gallons. It's enough to make a guy pull out his hair by the roots.

Thankfully SV Rover has a fully functional watermaker and donated ten gallons to the cause, so we are back where we started, but without a working water maker.

I contacted the service representative for the manufacturer by email and learned that the most likely cause this time is the stroke sensor. If that doesn't mean anything to you, you're not alone. I didn't have a clue what a stroke sensor is either, but it apparently senses water flow and gives a thumbs up to the onboard computer. Lacking that, the desalinator shuts down.

So now the big question is: is the sensor bad or something else? If I was home I would just replace the sensor and see what happens, but working in the middle of Mexico with all its concomitant difficulties, I'm thinking maybe we'll go to plan B: additional water storage. I brought eight five gallon collapsible water jugs for just such a purpose. That won't be enough to wash our hair, but it'll help us ward off thirst.

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