Water Water Everywhere

When we first came aboard Django, we found a watermaker. It was a watermaker that did not work and, given we were often in ports where we could fill our two 40-gallon water tanks, it wasn’t really critical to our survival. That said, WW has issues with things that don’t work. For our first couple of years, however, things that didn’t work weren’t hard to come by and their repair was essential. Now he’s fixed a lot of stuff and is starting to look at less critical nonfunctioning items.

As I described in an earlier post, he had purchased a new membrane over Christmas and installed it. With a few tweaks and the odd expletive, the watermaker was induced to…make water. Then came the day, a few weeks later, when its 1.5 gallons/hour (it is a very small watermaker) were reduced to approximately no gallons/hour.

The watermaker is housed in several different areas. The first is under the sole in the galley, where the filter resides. Here, sea water is run through a simple filter to remove icky stuff.

The filter section of the event, under the galley sole.

That done, it passes up a tube to the membrane, housed (at that time) in the compartment beneath the starboard arm of the saloon bench, between the starboard water tank and the compartment wall. A ridiculously narrow space. Here, the filtered water is passed through the membrane which is responsible for desalination. The purified water is then stored in the starboard water tank. (There is no connection to the port tank.)

First WW checked the filters. Not the problem. So he turned his suspicions to the membrane, an unprepossessing cylindrical object.

The membrane is very important. It has a life of about four or five years. This is not its working life, this is its life. Total. If, by chance, you purchase a membrane that has been on the shelf for four years, you can expect it to stop working fairly soon. So, WW’s first thought was that he’d bought an elderly membrane. The nice people at the watermaker place told him the membrane was fine. Which was good, because it would have taken a very long time to replace it, but it also put us under a real time constraint. If the membrane weren’t back in action soon, it would dry out and become useless. (When not in use, when we come home for weeks or months, the membrane must be “pickled” if it is to continue working.) It also meant WW would have to dismantle the entire watermaker. He bought a patented Watermaker Repair Kit that had lots of bits and pieces and goo and O-rings and seals and such.

The first challenge was to remove the main part of the watermaker (membrane etc.) from its tight fit between water tank and compartment wall. WW strove, I read. Finally, after removing the membrane and its mounting from the wall: “I can’t get it out.”

I peered in. “You can if you take it off that piece of plywood it’s mounted on.”

“Oh.”

Several minutes later: “I can’t get the second screw out.”

I peered in. “You can if you pull it over this way. You get a full nanometer clearance. Give me a screwdriver.”

It took about 15 minutes to remove a two-inch screw, but the deed was done, the membrane was out.

“It’s never going back in that space,” WW swore, and set off to find the ideal new spot for it.

“It’ll have to go back. It won’t fit,” he said. (He was being uncharacteristically negative that day).
I peered in. “Won’t it fit there? In front of the water pump?”

Well, actually yes and no. The space was just a hair short, so he’d have to drill a hole through the compartment wall, but this was better than putting it back into its inaccessible original location. Watermakers need quite a lot of maintenance. Getting to them is a good first step.

Over the next three days we cleaned, resealed, and rebuilt the watermaker. Just to add spice to WW's joy, he managed to cause the water pressure system to explode. I did one of my patented gazelle-like leaps over to the electrical panel and found the switch for the water pump...not quite quickly enough. The compartment and WW were awash. Once wrung out, he got to sort that before returning to the watermaker.

During the refurbishing process, at intervals, WW (wearing a mask against the vile fumes of hot, resisting fiberglass) worked on making a three-inch hole in the compartment’s wall. This took ages because the two rechargeable drills kept losing their charge and refusing to recharge because they were too hot. WW had an interesting system of Ziploc bags and ice cubes going. It was still a job done in fits and starts all dictated by the needs of batteries on the rocks.

Today, the watermaker is installed in its new (slightly more) accessible home. And, glory of glories, it works!

Oh, and in the midst of all this, the new windlass arrived. Also installed with only a small glitch to do with the switch. (There must always be a glitch.)

We were ready for the horde.