{"id":12590,"date":"2019-10-12T15:43:11","date_gmt":"2019-10-12T19:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/?p=12590"},"modified":"2019-10-25T10:27:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T14:27:50","slug":"were-out-of-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/were-out-of-water\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re Out of Water!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tanks or hoses rupture. Water makers cease functioning. It happens, and sometimes you\u2019re days from port.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For years while on long distance passages, others on the crew and I discussed a wide range of \u201cwhat if scenarios\u201d while sitting on the rail.\u00a0 Some had a basis in our respective pasts.\u00a0 Others were merely hypothetical.\u00a0 All provided us with some insights and options if and when we were ever faced with similar problems.\u00a0 Finding ourselves suddenly out of fresh water, days or weeks from port is merely one of many situations we\u2019ve considered, faced and overcome.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Generally, I figure that while offshore, we require a minimum of one gallon of fresh water per person per day. That will suffice as a minimum and take care of drinking \u2013 including coffee or tea \u2013 and cooking.\u00a0 Many boats today have water makers, and when figuring how much emergency water to bring, a rough estimate might be half of that amount, depending on the route, length of passage and reliability of the equipment. If I\u2019m coastal cruising and there are plenty of ports into which I can stop in an emergency, I may reduce my emergency water rations somewhat.\u00a0 In all cases, however, I plan ahead and bring extra water.\u00a0 Life can depend on it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Things don\u2019t always go as planned, however, and on occasion problems appear in cascading clusters. On one occasion we were three days into a transatlantic crossing and the water tanks had been back-siphoned by a newly \u2013 and incorrectly \u2013 installed freshwater head.\u00a0 We had emergency water for about half of the trip.\u00a0 Prepackaged juice, milk and other drinks helped with about a quarter of the trip. Draining the water heater provided a bit more, and planning a stop in the Azores to resupply could make up the difference with a small amount to spare.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCutting it close\u201d isn\u2019t my preferred methodology when it comes to long distance passage-making.\u00a0 However, on one \u2018round the world race in which I competed years ago, we had developed a leak in one of our fresh water tanks.\u00a0 As we were about to enter the doldrums on the way to South Africa we noticed the shortage.\u00a0 We cut our drinks ration to 6 cups per day, and the cook diluted the cooking water to 5 parts of fresh water and 1 part of sea water.\u00a0 That would provide us with enough water to get us to Cape Town.\u00a0 As luck would have it, during one particularly heavy downpour we were able to collect rain water in the foot of the reefed main and put that water in storage containers.\u00a0 After the initial burst of rain, the salt on the main had mostly been washed away, and the Dura-Seam coating on the sail\u2019s seams provided the sole \u201cflavor enhancer\u201d to the salvaged water. It wasn\u2019t a perfect solution, but it would help reduce the water needed for cooking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Years ago, I was told that people who cruise or race long distances learn to fix things, or they learn to do without them.\u00a0 Some people have been known to sew hose fittings into the foot of their mainsails and keep a hose long enough to run from the foot of the main to the water tank fill cap. One way or another it can be fixed, modified or jury-rigged, but one way or another, you should have a plan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What would you do? Email us at george@bwsailing.com<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tanks or hoses rupture. Water makers cease functioning. It happens, and sometimes you\u2019re days from port.   For years while on long distance passages, others on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1061,8],"tags":[1087,1089,1088],"class_list":["post-12590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bill-biewenga-offshore","category-cruising-news","tag-biewenga","tag-emergency-offshore","tag-water-offshore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12714,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12590\/revisions\/12714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}