[PUP] watermaker recommendations

[Dave Cooper]

We have had good luck with our no frills manual control 24 volt Village
Marine 8 GPH unit. We only have made about 4000 gallons so far but no
worries yet.

The VM is not as efficient as the Spectra as it requires about 20
watts/gallon whereas the Spectra is closer to 12 watts/gal. The Sea Recovery
units are in the order of 25-30 watts/gal. On sailboat's this makes a
difference but on a trawler not as much. We are aware of many folks who have
had issues with the Spectra and are not happy. Spectra's support is good but
if you are out of fresh water in outlying cruising areas or on a passage you
are SOL.
Village Marine's Little Wonder is really a minimalist unit like the
Katadyn's and as such is better suited to sail boaters needs, IMO. I.e. 5-10
gallons a day consumption..

I think the SCCA's list is skewed towards low power/production units as you
typically find in sailboats. So their experiences are not really as
applicable to trawler folks.

You need to understand your freshwater needs before you start shopping for
units. Trying to have a small unit make 200 GPD every day is not going to
work. OTOH, getting an 6-800 GPD unit will lead to maintenance & operational
issues if you only use 20 GPD. What power source(s) do you have and wish to
use to run it. DC is generally available at any time. The larger AC units
can run on inverter but consume so much that you'll need the genset on more
often that not to use an AC powered one. What is your charge regime on your
vessel? How does "making water" fit into it? Many questions ;-)

The units need to be run every three days to keep the water in them fresh
and for a few hours from our experiences. Yes some do have automatic systems
that will circulate, back flush and wash your back if you want but these all
add a level on complexity that invariable reduces the MTBF.

We run ours about 10 hours every 3 days which keeps it fresh, keeps the
water in our tanks fresh and keeps even with our 25 GPD consumption while
cruising.

As always YMMV....

Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58