How long does 90 gallons of fresh water last you?

Richard10002

Richard10002

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At anchor, on my own, having 2 showers a week, maybe washing up, clean teeth, wash face & hands, once a day, and the occassional rinse of something or other, I am finding that I can do about 3 weeks before my guages show half full, (which is probably less than half full).

Is this good, (from a water conservation point of view, rather than cleanliness), bad, or about average.

Cheers

Richard
 
I could make the folkboats 10gal tank last more than about 10 days but I had a lady freind who filled up the tanks twice a week from the marina supply on a 50ft M/B with 2.5tons of tankage. Good is when you have some left in the tank at the next fill up, bad is when you don't. If you are planning to be away from a water sorce for more than 4 weeks you know you have to ration or take cans.
 
We have a watermaker and use on average 150 litres per day, most of which is made with solar power. That allows us as many showers as we like (at least one each per day) all our clothes washing and free use of water for dishwashing, cleaning, etc. We don't particularly try to economise other than by not leaving taps running when brushing teeth, etc.

So your 90 gallons would last us about two and a half days /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
We also have a watermaker so we don't really ration water now. However, before we had one our consumption per persom matched yours, albeit it you did say your gauge might be over-reading.

We found that the biggest use of water is/was showers and when we were using your level of water consumption what we did was jump in the sea to get wet, climb aboard and soap-up, jump in to wash the soap off, then a quick rinse. On that basis we could shower every day. Not that I'm objecting to your cleanliness ;-)

The other thing that saved water for showering was we found the next biggest use of water is/was washing up. We used to do that in salt water with a minimal rinse.
 
when we were living aboard in hot climate (UK to Caribbean and back) we averaged 5 gallons per day for two poeple. This included a solar shower every day (one bag between two). We didnt ration ourselves aprt from the solar shower. This is just how it worked out.
 
From "Cruising Under Sail" by Eric Hiscock

"Half a gallon of freshwater per person per day is sufficient for drinking, but allows nothing for washing, and except when on an ocean passage few people would attempt to keep to keep their water consumption down to that uncomfortable minimum. In ordinary coastal cruising the average consumption is about 2 gallons per person per day, but it is possible to manage on 1 to 1-1/2 gallons without hardship.
 
We used 95 Gallons this summer in 5 weeks sailing. This was coastal cruising. We had some showers on board, but mainly in the marina. The 95 included all drinking water, and we cooked on board every day. We didn't eat/drink off the boat very much (once a week).
It ran out on the way home on the last day!

Jonny
 
[ QUOTE ]
We have a watermaker and use on average 150 litres per day, most of which is made with solar power. That allows us as many showers as we like (at least one each per day) all our clothes washing and free use of water for dishwashing, cleaning, etc. We don't particularly try to economise other than by not leaving taps running when brushing teeth, etc.

So your 90 gallons would last us about two and a half days /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds an ideal system

Which watermaker do you use & how did you rig the solar power ?
 
The key to it is the Spectra watermaker being highly energy-efficient, and dc, allowing me to power it from the solar panels (2 x 185W rigid Solara panels connected by a Solara controller), the diesel generator (around an hour every morning, then every evening for a while before retiring) and whenever we are running the main engine (never at anchor). In this part of the world (W Med) we have not needed wind, though it would undoubtedly be a benefit, you can't have everything.
 
[ QUOTE ]
"Half a gallon of freshwater per person per day is sufficient for drinking, but allows nothing for washing, and except when on an ocean passage few people would attempt to keep to keep their water consumption down to that uncomfortable minimum. In ordinary coastal cruising the average consumption is about 2 gallons per person per day, but it is possible to manage on 1 to 1-1/2 gallons without hardship.

[/ QUOTE ]That sounds spot-on to me. So for 2 people 90 galls at 2 galls each per day = 22 days, thereabout.
 
Call yourselves Sailors? Brushing teeth and showering every day is a waste of good bacteria......

Alex
 
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