Drinking water aboard

[Conachair]

Straight from the tanks or a half decent squall would provide enough drinking water for quite a few days, collected off the sun awning.

 

[GrahamM376]

Interesting (to me) that so many drink straight from tanks, yet others see this as a big no no. Most people I meet on the daysail/wekend circuit use bottles which take up valuable beer storage space and are a pain cos they keep rolling around the floor.
Is there some sort of water testing thing to check healthy water?

Maybe those of who drink direct from the tanks spend more time aboard. Depending on no. of showers, our tank has to be refilled weekly (actually done in small doses via cans from ashore) so it's always fresh. If we only sailed occasionally, I think I would be tempted to join the supermarket water brigade.

 

[KellysEye]

On long passages water from tank filled up by 110v HRO watermaker with a filter under the tap. As backup if the watermaker fails 2 x 1.5 bottles per day per two people for half the passage days. So for 24 day passage 48 bottles. Plus we carry two five gallon water containers on deck, for if we become desperate ;-)

 

[Ludd]

I tend only to dink water in the right spirit!
However ,I seem to remember a bit of research recently that claimed that bottled water was often less pure than tap water---remember the case of (Vichy?) water a few years ago?

Used to drive all over Europe and drank the local water everywhere,now living aboard ,still do. Taste is the only factor.
For example,here on the Guadiana ,people fill up on the Portuguese side,although the Spanish water is ok,it's too heavily chlorinated.

 

[vyv_cox]

However ,I seem to remember a bit of research recently that claimed that bottled water was often less pure than tap water---remember the case of (Vichy?) water a few years ago?
.

A big study in UK many years ago found much the same. Organics were very high in some cases, as were sodium salts. Best analysis of all was a small brand that they tracked down. It was produced by two guys filling bottles with Manchester tap water in a small shed in the garden.

 

[OldBawley]

Turks are inventive people so a few years ago, bottled water been new and unknown to them, they noticed that tourists ware keen on water from plastic bottles and ware willing to pay ridicules prices for that. So they made the tourists happy.
Have personally seen a bottling facility of a very well known brand of bottled water. Turkey, between English harbour and Karacakoy. A concrete stable, build into the side of the road. Inside, a guy is filling brand new bottles of possibly the most renown food and water supplier ( Nes....) A steel pipe with a lot of wholes in it, water pouring. He is singing during filling, why not, he is filling liquid gold. One consolation for those buying bottled water, the water in that area is excellent and his production will be for local needs.
On an other occasion I saw some kids of the owners of a bay restaurant near Göcek filling used bottles and then with a few tiny drops of super glue “sealing” the crack- open ring under the cap. They demonstrated to me that the bottecap “ Cracks” as genuine. Water is for free, a gift of Allah, but if yabanci want to pay one € for half a litre, why not. In those days, a 12 hour day of heavy labour earned a shipwright in Fethiye 4 euro´s.

 

[Talbot]

I drink my water from my 100 gallon main tank, and consider that this tastes better than any bottled water I have tasted.

However, I pass all water from the tap on the jetty through a 5 micron filter and a charcoal filter before it comes onboard.

 

[Bobobolinsky]

We have a Seagull IV but it cannot do anything to improve brackish water. On several Med islands the water available to yachts is of very poor quality, Majorca was particularly bad and several Aegean islands almost so. A friend began to have heart problems that were attributed to drinking local water with high salinity.

Alternatively, there are usually tap supplies that the locals drink, or you can buy drinking water from a road tanker. We buy in Leros, €5 for a tank full, then top up with 10 litre bottles from the public taps in Lakki.

The water in Majorca don't taste like what it oughta

 

[lenseman]

There can also be a problem with the hose you use to fill with. You need to use a "food grade" hose. The type of hose with a black inner leaves a nasty taste in the water & I'm led to believe is slightly toxic.

If you are going to make statements like this, you need to be very sure and back up your claims!

Where did you hear that the hose pipes might be "slightly toxic"? This is a very wild claim indeed.

None of the hoses which are standard on marina pontoons are "food grade" and I have never suffered from trouble what so ever and yes, you might need to run water through the pipework and hosepipe for a minute or so to make sure it is fresh?

Please state your source as hearsay is not good enough.

 

[hornblower]

Seagull 4 water filter. Not cheap but best bit of kit on the boat. Before getting it we used to lug bottles. In a warm climate that means carrying an awful lot of bottles from shops that can be a long way from the boat. Now we can use our energy carrying beer.

I absolutely agree - Seagull 4 is excellent bit of kit

 

[jordanbasset]

I absolutely agree - Seagull 4 is excellent bit of kit

Yes also agree, have used it from Plymouth to Greece, brilliant. Works out under a penny a litre for drinking water. Has paid for itself many times over

 

[Robin]

We used tank water on all our boats when in the UK over many years. I fail to see why water in plastic bottles that cost a fortune and was bottled maybe 6 months before would be better. Now as liveaboards in the USA we still use tank water, but our boat does have a domestic sized cartridge filter system. ost boats here connect directly into the water from the dock but we choose not to do that even though the boat has fittings for it (connection with a pressure relief valve and check valve), because I like to keep turning over the water in our tank which holds 320 US gallons so that it is not 'old and stale' for when we are away from our berth, plus I don't like the idea of the water sitting in the marina pipes in Florida heat. I always run lots of water through the hose first to flush it and the pontoon pipework before filling, as in wash the boat down first which is also what we did in the UK.

 

[duncan99210]

We have a Whale filter on the cold tap which makes most local water taste ok. However, it won't deal with the brackish water we get in Mallorca, so we are using bottled stuff from Lidl at the moment. As far as hoses are concerned, we use common or garden hoses with no hint of a problem so far.

 

[sailinglegend420]

We use a watermaker for all our water - 12 volts 70 ltrs/hour. For drinking water we mix in some Himalayan Salt in 1 ltr bottles and store in the fridge.

We never buy bottled water.