LinoCat

From Clifton we were motoring against the wind to Petit St Vincent (PSV) where we anchored over white sand. The snorkeling on the outer reef was great. Andi dropped us with the dinghy and the current brought us back to LinoCat. There was also some work to do and so the Spectra watermaker became two new filters, a 5micron and 20micron filter element. After sooooo much work it was time for a swim again. Chris and Lani also enjoyed the 28 Celcius war water. It looked like a bath tub and it felt like one too! Lani was licking all the saltwater from the swimring and even put her face into the water. Looks a little bit like paradise....

A while ago i had changed the coal prefilter on the watermaker and cleaned the seastrainer inlet. On the pictures you can see that this was necessary. The watermaker had 250hours and was 6 months in use. The 5 and 20 micron filters need to be cleaned next. The watermaker is still producing between 25 and 30 liters per hour depending on the watertemperature and voltage. We are consuming around 100 liter per day and that means that we let the watermaker run around 4 hours per day. It draws 10 Ampere so with our 200Ah charging per day over the solarpanels there is no need to run the engine at all. I would now consider a bigger watermaker for the future but weight is another issue. I have the gut feeling that some parameters are not set correctly since it still shows prefilters as good in the display panel.

A nice view over the swiss alps when flying from Stuttgart to Portimao. LinoCat is still on the hard in Portimao. The Spectra Watermaker has been installed. It is a Ventura 200, which can produce roughly 30Litre of water per hour while drawing 10A. It is designed for a slightly higher output but only suitable for warm water. The under water through hull fitting was already installed from the factory years ago and so there just had to be an above waterline through hole for the brine discharge water. There a several filters installed from charcoal to a 5 micron and 20 micron filter, a feedpump and the Clarke high pressure pump. All this was fitted under the forward port bunk.

LinoCat has 2 300Liter watertanks that is 600Liter. If we assume 4 people on board, each consuming 5 Liters a day this would make 30 days of water supply. This seems to be plenty. But what if the drinking water is not ok that you have filled in your tanks? What if a tank is leaking? First when bluewater cruising you have to switch the tanks continously to make sure that you are not loosing all the water in tank B after having emptied tank A. Second you need to make sure that the water that you fill is OK. This is fairly easy in Europe but tricky in other parts of the world. Before we fill water in a marina we let the water un for a while because the pipes on the docks and the hoses might have been filled with the same water for a while and in the sun this makes a perfect breeding ground for bacteria. After the water from the hose is feeling much colder we usually start filling the tanks. The next question is: How to get the water OUT of the tank? Stupid question? What if you only have ...