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Cleone - CLEONE Leg 22A Day 9 - Water; a Technical Interlude



We have six, no eleven, sorts of water on board

In Gibraltar, most houses have both salt and fresh water piped in.  The Rock is short of fresh, and now has to make most of it expensively by Reverse Osmosis.  So everyone flushes with salt water, though goodness knows how their sewage systems work - maybe they just pipe it untreated across into Spanish waters.  Aboard Cleone, life is even more complicated.

Unlike most, if not all, of the other World ARC Yachts, we are the only one not to have had a problem with our water-maker; we have not got one.  So we carry quite a lot of Fresh Water with us, normally in three tanks.  One has a hole in it, but that still leaves us with 720 litres under the saloon bunks, nearly three quarters of a tonne.  This sounds a lot, until you imagine it may have to last the five of us on board for nearly a month.  The water in our two tanks is drinkable, and we use sterilisation tablets if we are in any doubt about its quality (as an aside, except for Vanuatu, Commonwealth countries all seem to have universal distribution of potable water).  But we also carry a lot - up to 300 litres - of Bottled Water, which we use for drinking when we want plain water (the Skipper rarely does; he says you don't wash in beer).  The water in the tanks is mainly used for domestic purposes, cooking, washing up, showering and so forth.  But the skipper watches our consumption of both of these commodities carefully - running out of either would be inconvenient, and running out of both a disaster.  (But not half as carefully as he watches our stocks of beer - Ed). 

The next commodity, Sea Water, the Skipper's careless of; he says we can use as much of it as we want, and Cleone has a decent sea-water pump and a long hose.  It's not much good for washing the body - salt water leaves you sticky rather than properly clean.  But you can use it to wash clothes (salt is a mild disinfectant, apparently) and dirty dishes, giving them a final rinse in a minimum amount of fresh water.  And its great for flushing and general cleaning - you can splash as much of it as you want around the decks and cockpit; the more the merrier.  And we use salt water for cleaning vegetables and for some cooking.  Why use expensive table salt when there's literally tons of it around for free?

That is three sorts of water so far, and all of them are clean.  Some readers may want to gloss over the next part, but you are getting it anyway.  We've then got three sorts of dirty water aboard, most of which we don't want.  There's a Grey Water tank, into which the shower and fridge drain flow.  For some reason, this is the smelliest and nastiest tank on board - guess who cleans it out every so often.  There's a Black Water tank, into which the Heads can be diverted; we don't use it at sea or unless we have to.  And guess who gets to clean this one out?  And like all boats, we inevitably carry a certain amount of Bilge Water in the bilges.  Cleone is a remarkably dry boat; although always damp, every two or three days the bilges get sponged out as there is normally too little to pump or bale.

Well there you are, I said there were six kinds of water aboard.  And I'm wrong; actually we've got several more.  There's two sorts of engine cooling water - Raw or salt Water gets pumped through a heat-exchanger, where it cools the Coolant (fresh water plus antifreeze) which circulates our Yanmar just like a car's engine.  The old batteries needed topping up, so there is Distilled Water for these.  And happily there is also some Tonic Water for, yes, G&Ts and Soda Water for the Skipper's occasional Whisky and Sodas.  I make that a total of eleven, and if they're not on the critical list (Tonic Water is) they are all important.  No wonder the Skipper's beard is grey, and no wonder he frowns a lot.   Trying to keep track of all this lot is where he really misses Norfy.

Meanwhile, all is well with us, and very best wishes to all of you.

James, Graham, Jenni, Shayne and Mandy

Yacht Cleone
15o07'S 025o58'W
 
PS.  Even as I wrote it, I knew I'd spelt Rioja wrong.  But I dared not ask the crew about it!

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