Drinking Water on Legato

We need to avoid the weight, space and vast amount of plastic rubbish that would be produced by carrying 2 bottles per person for X days. Other than the difficulty to carry the accumulated rubish, it is possible that the places we will arrive won’t have the capacity to recycle, and therefore our plastic would end up in our environment.

We therefore have a watermaker that produces 60 L of drinkable water per hour, from sea water. The watermaker directly fills Legato’s 180 liter middle tank. The plan is for the watermaker to work up to 1.5h per day thus producing 90 l which is more than sufficient for drinking, cooking, and showers, for 4-5 people.

The quality of the produced water has been tested in a laboratory and although it is considered perfectly drinkable we have added a special filter which adds small quantities of magnesium, potassium, and chloride electrolytes, thus increasing PH and rendering it even healthier.

Although the water will not be stationary for long, we still need to ensure that no bacteria are developed in the tank. To this effect, an additional UV device has been installed near the galley tap, which disinfects water at 99.999% without adding any chemicals.

Of course we need a backup in case of watermaker failure. To this effect we will fill (at each port) our main (front) freshwater tank which has a capacity of 300l. This water will go through the same filtering system at the galley tap for disinfection. It is unfortunately inevitable that carrying 300kg extra weight at the bow will negatively affect the boat’s performance.

Regarding showers, the water will be in principle at ambient temperature as it can only be heated by the engine. In summertime this should not be too much of a problem, nevertheless we have a couple of shower bags that can heat their water if they are left on deck, for the most sensitive crew.