Mediterranean Cruising Years

Our Schenker Watermaker has been running perfectly for the last 4 months (touch wood). The unit is making 30 litres an hour at a water temperature of 23 degreec C.  I’m changing the pre filter every 4 days and cleaning it with sea water rinsing in freshwater then hanging it out to dry in the [...]

Have now been using the watermaker for a week or so and (touch wood) no problems. It’s running very well with no noise or screaching at all. The machine is making 31.5 litres an hour with a water temperature of 19 degrees C. Wach this space

We had the following email from Jim McDonald early in October giving the details of his investigation: “Just a short note to update you on your watermaker. I ran the machine for 10 hours and whilst it was working fine, producing good quality water, There was a squeeking noise from one side of the cycle. [...]

Our initial setup was paper charts with a Yeoman Plotter and a Garmin 128 GPS with external antenna. This really worked well, the Yeoman plotter was easy to use. Just clip a chart onto the plotter surface (like a very large mouse mat) align the chart on the mat and off you go. Move the [...]

After much serious reading and research from books, Internet (I recommend Victrons “Energy Unlimited”) and cruising people we met on our travels we decided to have the following setup: Four 90W Phaesun Solar panels Blue Sky MPPT Regulator Six 225AH Trojan deep cycle 6V Batteries Victron 2500W /120 amp Multi Plus Inverter / Charger Victron [...]

Spray’s first DC system consisted of three 110 AH ‘leisure’ batteries giving 330 AH total and one 110 AH engine start battery. The alternator on the engine was a 55A ‘normal’ car type which came with the engine. I figure one and a half hours of engine run per day would re charge the batteries. [...]

The replacement Modular 30 arrived late July 07 and I fitted it under the bunk in the “utility” room as this would place the unit totally under water.  Previous location was above the waterline but only by about 400mm. The Schenker user manual suggest placing it below the waterline but it also said the pump [...]

After two months navigating through the French Canal system we popped out in Port St Louise Du Rhone. After fitting the mast we motored out to the anchorage and with a water temperature of 17 degrees centigrade we started the watermaker. The Smart 30 made 25 litres of water per hour so we were very [...]

Initially I thought that we did not need a watermaker and we managed without one for the first 5 years of our cruising life. However, we could only stay in an anchorage or bay for a limited number of days as we were governed by our internal water tanks which hold 350 litres each. They [...]