Towed watermakers -anyone tried one yet?

SimonJ

Member
Joined
10 Aug 2001
Messages
409
Location
Returned to Caribbean for the winter, back to uk f
Visit site
Just returned from Caribbean where it is becoming very boring fetching water whenever it is available and it does not always taste good. Containers of extra supplies take up a lot of stowage space and are heavy. A watermaker would be good to have aboard my 34ft boat but on the other hand you can buy an awful lot of water for the price of most watermakers which generally need a lot of care and maintenace.
Before setting off (Sep last year) I was hopeful through an earlier post here that one of the publications would test the towed watermaker that has been advertised. I have not caught up with all my back reading and may have missed a review.
Can anyone report anything on the towed watermaker? At about a quarter the price of a powered ro plant, smaller, lighter and apparently quite simple they would appear to be a good solution. But are they ...?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
There has been more than one thread here in recent months concerning a towed watermaker. No forum member reported that they had received a working unit, or had seen one work or directly knew anyone else who had seen one work.

Naturally, plenty of questions were asked and inferences drawn. In the end, the forum manager removed the threads at the request of a manufacturer who, I seem to recall, threatened legal action unless the threads were removed. The forum manager also said, as far as I recall, that he hoped that ybw or an associated publication would investigate this product and report in due course. Meanwhile, caveat emptor, I suppose?

I'd love to get to the bottom of this - my own fag-packet calculations suggest that a decimal point would have to be shifted a couple of places to the right, by divine intervention, for such a product to work with anything like the claimed performance. But then again, I am not a towed watermaker designer, so what do I know?
 

zefender

Active member
Joined
9 Jul 2001
Messages
1,741
Location
quacious
Visit site
Well, I've managed to acquire one and have it on board - so it does really exist! Mine was sent for the cost of an RNLI donation from a previous owner who has ended a long sea adventure. By his account, he certainly had problems with it, mainly to do with the unit not staying under water but he also spoke of good aftersales experience from the manufacturer. There is a known fault on this one, with a kink on the boat end of the hose connector. I also know of another user who owns one in the carib and speak highly of it. I'm keeping an open mind until I have the chance to fix the kink and test it in July - will report back.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I shall certainly be very interested in the outcome. We should be setting off for the Med at the very beginning of July so I might miss your report, but will look for it once we get WiFi on board again.
 
Top