Recommendations, endorsements and suggestions on that key area of any modern day row (They used to go without them you know), the Water-maker Unit.
Andrew Giles - By profession I am a mechanical engineer. I had some prior experience of endurance events such as 1000 mile push bike races, various marathon distance running races etc, but had zero rowing experience before embarking on the challenge. All that changed quite rapidly once we were committed to the 2003 Woodvale race! I completed that race with Faye Langham in 56 days and 4 minutes.
Andrew Wrote:
We used the PUR 40E and it was superb. I attended the strip down course
at Solent Marine in Southampton and this too was invaluable, both for a
piece of mind thing, and also when our watermaker failed before the
start in La Gomera there were no dramas, I just stripped it down,
replaced the faulty valve and off we went again. I have some watermaker
related tips:
i) Mount the watermaker securely and as close to the
waterline of the boat as possible. This minimises the suction head for
the pump.
ii) Place the water intake as close to the centreline of the
boat as possible, this minimises the air sucked in as the boat rolls.
iii) Mount the water maker using wing nuts, so that in the
worst case if you abandon ship you can quickly remove the watermaker and
take it with you.
iv) Fit a piece of tube and a valve to the top of the filter
housing to make priming easier.
v) Make sure the suction side of the pump is 100% air tight,
then you will hardly ever have to prime the watermaker
vi) Don't bother taking loads of filters like we did! We
didn't have to change ours at all.
vii) We used a 50l water storage bladder placed in a central
storage compartment with a small handpump to empty it. This was a great
system and is recommended.
