How useful is a sea water tap ?

sarabande

sarabande

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I have a through-hull with a good but unconnected Blakes valve.

With some maintenance and refurb coming up, I am wondering about the value of connecting the valve to a hand pump, so that in the event of getting out into blue water, I can use seawater for various domestic tasks.

For those of you with a seawater tap, just how useful are they and would you recommend them ?
 
Well thanks to some inventive plumbing ours nearly sank our boat a couple of days out into the Atlantic, so I’m deciding whether to block it off or replumb it.
 
I’d like one.

Most evenings when we are anchored I use the bathing platform to wash off the pots and pans, before giving them a quick wash in the sink with fresh water.

I think that it’s most useful when cruising with limited access to fresh water. If you plan to go marina to marina or have a water maker, I guess that the need is reduced.

Garold
 
The only time I use sea water is to rinse out my portable urinal bottle which I use when taken short in crowded waters where I dare not leave the helm unattended.

My boat having a low freeboard, all I have to do after emptying it over the wall is reach down and catch some sea water on it, swish it about and empty it again.

Piece of ....!:D
 
Seawater to the galley is a worthwhile addition, although it depends on how clean the water is where you will be spending time.

If you have a spare through hull then you have 90% of the effort involved in installation already completed so it seems a shame not to finish the other 10%.
 
We’ve got an pumped sea water tap at the galley sink with another tap in the anchor locker for washing the chain as it comes aboard. Well worth fitting it, it’s at least halved our water consumption and the tap the chain locker can also be used for deck wash down. Yes, we could use a bucket but it’s much easier just turning on a tap or using a hose pipe.
 
With the seacock already there you may as well use it.We swill the dishes in sea water when it's clean enough but I wouldn't drill another hole in the hull for it.
 
One downside you have to also consider is how many times you will stub you toe on the damn pump lever!!

I have a watermaker and have not used the seawater pump, with no watermaker I'd agree its a convenient and efficient to have the seawater pump..
 
I thought about fitting one initially, but never did. After a few years of liveaboard cruising, I'm glad I didn't. Just can't think of much use for it. We can wash dishes with very little water as it is (wet soapy sponge). The few times we used seawater for cooking, we just scooped some up with the cookpot from the swim platform. But found it's very salty (especially in the Med), so you have to reduce the salt in the sauce to make up for the salty rice/pasta. Or use 50/50 sea/freshwater, in which case it's hardly worth the little water saving.

The only thing we regularly wash in seawater is Oliver (don't ask) our "stinkpot", a plastic bucket with lid that holds biodegrable rubbish (vegetable peels, egg shells, etc.) and gets dumped when we're out at sea. That I usually do precariously standing on the swim platform, holding on with one hand while dragging the bucket in our wake :)

A pressurized seawater washdown pump for cleaning the anchor and chain on the other hand I still do wish I had fitted, and probably will at the next haulout, if I can figure out where to run the plumbing.
 
Poignard said:
The only time I use sea water is to rinse out my portable urinal bottle which I use when taken short in crowded waters where I dare not leave the helm unattended.

My boat having a low freeboard, all I have to do after emptying it over the wall is reach down and catch some sea water on it, swish it about and empty it again.

Piece of ....!:D
Click to expand...

Hope your guests do not help themselves to "cider” ?
 
I was chatting to someone about this the other day (a charter skipper whose guests usually empty the huge FW tanks on day 1 with the electric pump..) and he made a good case for having a powerful electric pump on the sea water tap, and a manual pump on the FW tap to limit consumption. Sounds like a plan to me.
(This chap said, after the guests had emptied the tanks by leaving the FW tap running while they brushed their teeth, applied lipstick etc, he explained that they had to divert the luxury yacht into a smelly fishing harbour to refill, as there was no FW on board.
After the 2nd refill, he pulled the breaker on the FW pump, and told the guests they had burnt out the pump.
The next morning, he found a guest energetically pumping the foot pump, watching the water disappear down the plughole ..as she brushed her teeth..:rolleyes:
 
I think I would prioritise deckwash above seawater at the galley sink.
I quite often do the washing up on deck anyway!
 
Seawater is another name for amoebic-hydrochloric-acid. It has absolutely no place in a boat. Once it gets inside it will get transmitted by it’s own surface crawling amoeba onto all parts of the boat and destroy every element of it from within. Keep it out at all costs. You have been warned.

If you have a water supply problem then get a watermaker. Nice vs nasty.
 
I suspect that your view of having a pumped salt water supply at the galley, depends on the quality of the water that floats your boat. We sail mainly in the far flung parts of the Hebrides, where the water is clean, and find having a foot pump for salt water at the galley is invaluable. Apart from rinsing pots and dishes, and preparing vegetables, sea water has just the right amount of salt for boiling the tatties.
 
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