-----Original Message-----
From: John and Anne on Bali Hai [mailto:hollamby@compuserve.com]
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 5:09 PM
To: amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Amel Yacht Owners] Watermakers



Some time ago I commented on what appeared to be strange features of the
watermakers fitted to Super Maramus. Our boat is fitted with a 160 ltr per
hr unit and has performed perfectly over the past three seasons. The
standard installation is a 60 ltr ph unit, I think. It seems that both units
have one thing in common, namely that the so called salinity monitor is
nonexistent. Instead it is a timer which assumes the sea water has been
desalinated after two minutes and then sends the product to the water tank.
This is fine so long as the machine is working properly. However if the
product is not totally purified it will have a salt content which can and
will have a devastating effect on equipment which is designed to only work
with purified water. In other words the alloy castings used to make the
washing machine and others will corrode/erode/be electrolised and fail and
leak just before falling apart with dangerous and expensive consequenses.
I have an Email from Yves on Blue Marine who sends me pictures of destroyed
castings from his washing machine and a report,by someone who claims to be
an expert in this field which has, I believe, been sent to our alter ego,
namely the French version of this web site.
What this report says, in French, which if I understand it right, is that
Amel/Dessalaters have devised a version of the standard 60 ltr ph machine
which is fundamentally flawed as it does not provide enough sea water to
satisfy the desalinator and that this results in the early failure of the
membranes with potentially catastrophic results.
Whether this is true or not I have no idea but we need to know ! It could be
that Yves on Blue Marine has,umwittingly, flushed the membranes with shore
water containing chlorine which would immediately damage the membranes
beyond repair.
I have the bigger version because I know, from transpac experience that it
is better to have a machine which will produce a lot of water quickly whilst
the genset is running, or with my last boat, with a high pressure pump
working the desalinator staight off the end of the main engine drive
pulleys. I also know that one of the greatest gifts that one can give to
Pacific Islanders on remote atolls or even in larger groups such as Fiji in
times of drought, is fresh water.
The failure of a watermaker on a long voyage would not be catastrophic
assuming that one keeps ones tanks full. However a watermaker without an
effective salinity monitor is potentially life threatening. A simple
alternative would be to to have an easy way of tasting the product coupled
with a manually operated valve to send the pure product to the tanks.
Blue Marine clearly did not notice the failure in the purification process
perhaps, because they, surprisingly to me, drink only bottled water,
whereas we only drink product and would thus be aware fairly soon if the
product was salty. Blue Marines installation was.
I suppose, not passing pure sea water as they would, I imagine would have
noticed the salinity whilst showering.
Be that as it may, there is a very worrying issue here and I call upon our
Guru, Joel Potter, to give us a definitive reply and advice as soon as
possible.
It would also be interesting to have comments from other water making folk.

Happy New Year from Anne and John





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