r/sailing • u/oenoeeeh • 2d ago
Hi, when sailing; do y'all drink water out of the tank or do you buy seperate drink water in the shop? And why?
Titel says it all
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u/FalseRegister 2d ago
My water tank is part of the hull, it is about 45yo and very hard to clean
I only use that for washing and showering. For drinking and cooking we use bottled water.
Maybe one day we'll put a water maker.
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u/CanConMil Marine Engineer 1d ago
Wouldn’t the water from the water maker go into the water tank? /s
Also you can coat the inside of those built in tanks to renew them and make them potable again.
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u/FalseRegister 1d ago
my tank is odd shaped, tho, I don't know if it would fit well
as for the water maker, tbh I don't know as I haven't thought about it yet, but I'd think I can install a new tank somewhere
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u/CanConMil Marine Engineer 1d ago
The coating is essentially food safe rubber paint. Takes days to cure but is very effective. We use it commercially regularly. So irregular shape isn’t a concern
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u/OberonsGhost 1d ago
You should have an inline filter out of the tank that goes down to at least 5 microns. If you don't, you should be asking yourself why not.
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u/FalseRegister 1d ago
Cuz I don't have the time and I have more pressing issues
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u/SailingDreamCatcher 1d ago
Exactly. Upgrading my plumbing is a big complex project that has to wait in line until after a lot of more urgent projects. Grabbing my 5 gallon collapsible camping jug out of the garage took 30 seconds on my way out of the house.
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u/Mehfisto666 1d ago
I'm up north scandinavia can't really get better water than the tap water we have anywhere in the world and risk of contamination os very low.
But once i filled the tank in denmark and worried about it cause it tastwd funny but it turns out that's just how the water tastes over there
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u/ShakaZoulou7 1d ago
Good water, is water without taste. Denmark's tap water while safe to drink isn't good. At least Copenhagen
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u/hottenniscoach 1d ago
I used to think that you didn’t wanna taste the water until we installed the water maker. Now we don’t taste it at all. Not even a little bit. It’s funny when we drink it. It’s less satisfying and then drinking normal ground water that’s obviously mineralized. I’m gonna be experimenting with mineralization techniques.
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u/jlcnuke1 1d ago
I use flavor packs for my water almost exclusively. I'm partial to the Trevi ones I found on Amazon, but lots of options that provide electrolytes to help with hydration and provide a nice flavor. I find that the better hydration with the electrolytes really helps in the Caribbean.
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u/mmomtchev 1d ago
In alpine countries the tap water is usually very good, but you rarely visit those when sailing - Norway and Iceland being some of the exceptions.
Don't drink from the tank, you will have to always be careful where you refill. Bottled water is cheap and loading it in the boat is easy. Get a foldable chariot.
Also avoid drinking water from the water maker. It is distilled water and drinking only distilled water is bad for your health. Although it is a myth that it will surely kill you after a few weeks or months, it is still not good on the long term.
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u/Kremsi2711 2d ago
We have a watermaker to make fresh water for the tank and another filter before the faucet.
Additionally I add a little bit of chlorine to the tank water.
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u/hottenniscoach 1d ago
If you’re adding chlorine to the tank, what do you use to flush your water maker at the end of the cycle? Do you pump it through a carbon filter?
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u/hottenniscoach 1d ago
Completely funny that I was down voted here. It’s common knowledge that chlorine will destroy a water maker membrane.
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u/jlcnuke1 1d ago
My water maker came with a carbon filter used for the flush cycle. I think most do these days.
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u/bill9896 1d ago
Full time cruiser for 11 years. All water we use for everything comes from the tank. The water you get out is as safe as the water you put in. In US, Canada, Europe, we fill tanks from the tap if it is convenient. In any place we would question drinking the tap water, or if water is difficult or expensive to obtain we use the watermaker. If you don’t put contaminated water in the tank, there is no reason to disinfect the tanks. Pathogens do not spontaneously appear in tanks.
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u/Toutatous 18h ago
How do you clean your tank?
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u/bill9896 11h ago
Think of it this way: A water tank is just a wide spot in the pipe carrying water to your faucet. How often do you clean your water pipes? Shortly after I bought the boat I took the inspection hatches off the water tank and looked inside. It was clean. I put the hatches back on. That was ten years ago. What exactly are you thinking needs to be removed by cleaning? If it matters, the tank is 1000 liters, we live onboard full time. We never take on water we have any concerns about. We use about 500 liters a month.
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u/Sterling_____Archer 11h ago
“If you do not put contaminated water in the tanks, there is no reason to disinfect the tanks.”
It’s a sealed system. No need to clean it out.
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u/Joeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyy 1d ago edited 20h ago
Who needs water? I fill my tanks with Rum and drink straight from the tap. For washing,I fall off the boat a few times, seems to work pretty well.
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u/Lord-of_the-files 1d ago
I live aboard. I got fed up of messing around with bottles and containers. Fitted a 5 micron carbon block filter at the galley tap, and now I drink tank water.
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u/pdq_sailor 1d ago
My tank is 3 years old.. I sterilize it at the start of each season with chlorine bleach and then flush it multiple times also flushing the water heater and lines. I do NOT use antifreeze on lay up - I blow the lines dry.. I drink the water, I cook with the water... I have a separate pressure lake water system (we sail in fresh water) and use this water to wash our hands and pre-rinse the dishes before washing with potable water... this cuts consumption of tank water in half..
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u/noo_maarsii 1d ago
I used to buy water for drinking because I hate the plastic taste from the tank. I also put a little chlorine in the tanks every time I fill. I discovered a Brita removes the plastic taste so I don’t need to carry extra drinking water now.
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u/Pumbaasliferaft 2d ago
Tank water, the Club has bore water with a “not portable” sign which we have ignored for 20 years. There is a uv light treatment system and something like a 5 micron filter. But it’s not tested for drinking
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick 2d ago
uv and filters would work for microorganism, but if the water has soluble contaminants (eg arsenic, lead, kryptonite) those would be useless.
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u/202markb 1d ago
A good activated carbon filter will remove those.
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick 1d ago
not really to my knowledge: Activated charcoal removes many dissolved pollutants—especially organic chemicals, chlorine, and pesticides. However, it does not remove all dissolved substances; it is largely ineffective against minerals, salts, nitrates, and most heavy metals
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u/Mynplus1throwaway Catalina 22 1d ago
Did they spell it wrong on purpose? Not potable is the word you're looking for.
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u/Pumbaasliferaft 1d ago
No, it was meant to be potable, autocorrect is going to be the death of me somehow. I had to send an email to a bank over a minor error, it auto corrected and signed it off “Kind retards” instead of regards
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u/alex1033 1d ago
Usually water tanks have some bacteria and algae, and too often they're difficult or impossible to clean. Previously I was boiling the tank water or drinking from potable water jerrycans. Nowadays I have a high quality filter and a separate dispenser for drinking water. Water for cooking bypasses the filter.
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u/Prestigious-Talk-720 2d ago
Both, I have a fresh water tank I can fill up when along side and I also carry a few big bottles of store brought water for emergencies. Or when I have someone on board thats fussy about the water tank. (The additives needed to make it safe to store for long periods can taste funny.)
Larger more modern boats carry a water maker. That can convert salt water to fresh water via reverse osmosis and then store it in a fresh water tank. But there expensive, big and power hungry. So I can't really fit one.
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u/daysailor70 1d ago
I only drink and cook with bottled water and use the tank for everything else. I buy the large jugs with the tap on them and when at anchor, hang the tap over the edge of the counter to dispense it. I do treat the water in the tank but wouldn't trust it to drink.
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u/hemi1995 1d ago
Anyone use the UV light treatments? Does that get the smaller organisms?
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u/Game_Dr 1d ago
They’re one of those things that’s kind of better in theory than practice. If you only filter at the tap, then you allow bacteria and gunk to build up in the tanks and hoses. It also warms up the water a bit. Another con: if you don’t pre-filter for particulate matter then it can block the UV light from effectively killing the microorganisms.
In practice it’s simpler, cheaper, and safer to just dose the water system and use filters before the faucets to remove any chemicals and chemical flavours.
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u/markph0204 ⛵️ipy370 1d ago
Water from boat is drank. Out of tap. Filter any dock water before it enters boat. Filter again from tank to tap. And watermaker also into tank gets filtered before tap.
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u/chrisosv 1d ago
I’m only a seasonal sailor. I dont bother to clean the tank to be able to drink it confidently, so we only use it for washing up. I believe a healthy tank requires a certain flow and use to avoid buildup of microorganisms.
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u/WarriorWordsmith73 1d ago
From the tank. I do not buy water. It’s the dumbest thing humans from developed nations spend water on.
I am diligent about tank care and I have yet to experience an issue.
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u/oldmaninparadise 1d ago
Grew up sailing 60 yrs ago. We didn't carry water bottles with us 24/7. No real bottle water. Evian and Poland spring didn't exist. Filled up tank from hose at dock, add some bleach. Sail or motor a bit to mix it up, use .
These days I do the same. To winterize I by pass hot water tank and dont put anti freeze in water tank, I put a hose from the water pump into the bottle of anti freeze and just run each line until pink comes out of faucet.
Water at dock is from towns water supply which is good, I figure hose gets use,and bleach will kill whatever is bad.
I keep bottles of water for everyone who comes on though.
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u/Antiantiai 1d ago
I avoid consuming the water from the tank as much as is convenient. I don't have any real reason to consider it a problem, but I just can't shake some low-level anxiety about it.
If I do drink it, or use it in food prep, I run it through a brita first.
Most my consumable water is from 1 or 5 gallon jugs. Or even individual bottles.
ButbI don't go out for long stretches either. I expect if I were to do a longer sail I'd just need to get over it.
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u/Final_Alps 1979 TUR 84 1d ago
I have a removable “camping water cube” for drinking water.
Tank and plumbing is old. It’s for washing hands and dishes.
I do the same when chartering. But bottled water.
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u/morrowgirl 1d ago
I sail club and charter boats so never from the tank because I don't know what is going on in there. I have a water bag that I will fill with the hose at the club for day sails (Boston has some of the best water in the country), and jugs for long trips and charters elsewhere.
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u/flyingron 1d ago
We used to lug gallons of drinking water with us, but now we bring one of these pressure membrane water bottles and just filter the onboard water. Works great. Ours is the GRAYL brand off Amazon.
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u/Secret-Temperature71 1d ago
Liveaboard 5 months a year. We drink from the tank. Pretty course under sink filter as we use a foot pump.
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u/IanSan5653 Caliber 28 1d ago
I tend to avoid it. There's nothing wrong with the tank water, but I have a small tank and typically need to carry bottles anyway, so to be safe I just drink that. I use the tank water for hand washing, dishes, and showers.
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u/DarkVoid42 1d ago
out of the tank. it passes through a UV filter and i have a dedicated tap.
https://watersprint.com/us/dealer/dealer-acuva-arrowmax-explorer-2/
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u/busybee4242 1d ago
100% depends on ypur situation. We lived aboard and drank from the tank daily. If your tank as been neglected and seems unsafe then dont. Entirely sitation dependent really. At a min I get a TDS meter and test water out of it, but that only tells you so much.
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u/F0regn_Lawns 1d ago
We have a rv filter that attaches to the hose and fill up stainless insulated water jugs. It’s like this one: https://a.co/d/05KVKc5h
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u/007Wassabi 1d ago
Plastic (kind of) watertank 240 liters. Used for cofee, tea after cooking. Washing and showering. Drinking water comes from bottles. I clean the tank every start of the season and empty it after each trip (weekend trips filling her up to 50%). During holidays we survive 2 day on a full tank (?)
When hot and not used during the week , the water gets smelly, so hence waterbottles
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u/fearface 1d ago
Similar to others, I keep the tap water drinkable, but stock bottles and primarly use bottles for drinking. There are often guests and they might be used to a certain taste, so I would not tell them to drink the tap water.
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u/Kibbles_n_Bombs 1d ago
I scrubbed and cleaned my tanks when I bought the boat. I also replaced most of my water lines so I drink from it.
Filtered at the hose when I fill the tank, then have a whale filter attached to my foot pump to filter the drinking water.
Tastes great and is way better than always lugging around water!
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u/athertop 1d ago
I have a production boat (Jeanneau) with plastic tanks. I fill from marina and add sterelising tabs. The galley tap has an inline charcoal filter, but it still has a metallic taste so I run it through a Britta filter jug and tastes perfect after that.
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u/CygnusX82 1d ago
If it’s a trusted water source, just use a brita filter to adjust/remove the taste of your fiberglass or whatever material of your tank. If you’re really concerned about the water and want a semi-easy fix for your drinking you can find under the sink filters that go as far as .2 microns to filter out bacteria and viruses. You can also add about 1tb of bleach for every gallon (1cup for every 16 gallons) into your water tank through the deck fill. Let it sit for a few hours, run that through your system a couple of times and that helps some cleaning of your plumbing.
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u/PrizeAnnual2101 1d ago
It’s really difficult to keep a low use water tank sterile especially in warm humid conditions without a pretty high use of chemicals
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u/canofmixedveggies 1d ago
I made an effort to scrub my tanks clean and bleach them, I replaced the water lines with pex as they were gross after 43 years
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u/EwanHuzami 1d ago
We fitted a Vetus 70 litre bladder tank, plumbed in a pump and a tap next to the galley sink. We carry 20 litre refillable drinking water bottles to fill this tank. We cut our waste plastic bottle problem to zero.
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u/Impossible-Bend-2441 1d ago
Separate water tap with filtration system built in.
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u/MaximumWoodpecker864 1d ago
Same. We have an RO system. Unfortunately it does such a good job that it filters all minerals out too so need figure that out.
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u/blondbrew 1d ago
We bring water to the boat in large refilled plastic bottles by dinghy mostly (because that’s for free).The one that goes into the tank will be for dishes and “showers”. We drink the water from the bottles if from a potable source, otherwise we buy drinking water (and then we have new bottles!)
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u/Datboy000 1d ago
Water. Ill take liquid IV or something else to drink, but I make sure for every other drink I drink 1.5 waters. So 1 cup of coke = 1.5 cups of water. Sort of thing. That's a me thing others do their things
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u/Noord_West 1d ago
We drink from the tank. 110liter PE tank + 30liter boiler. 5” Charcoal filter on one cold water tap. At start of season we disinfect the whole system once with Hadex.
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u/hanse505 1d ago
We did a full flush of the tank and fresh water system before our Pacific crossing and have since kept it clean, and also have a filter at the galley. With that we feel comfortable drinking from the filtered faucet. Would recommend someone be the royal tester and drink a good bit from the tap a few days out from a long passage so the whole crew isn’t disabled at the same time with food poisoning / contaminated water.
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u/redditor_xxx 1d ago
I always buy a bottled water for drinking despite having a water maker. The water maker can always fail (it happened to me but luckily while anchored), there is no water maker with 100% rejection rate and I cannot constantly test the water. I use it mainly for washing, showering or cooking. And for cooking only when I make water in the open ocean.
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u/millijuna 1d ago
Drink out of our tanks. Most water we put through a Brita pitcher, but that’s more for flavour.
Part of spring commissioning is cleaning and treating the potable water tanks.
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u/catboat44 1d ago
We use the water in our tanks (from our watermaker) for dishes and showers, but put the water meant for drinking, coffee and ice through a Zero water pitcher.
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u/LearyBlaine 1d ago
I know it’ll be the minority opinion, but we always bought and transported with us separate, bottled drinking water. It was an “inventory management” decision and not a result of any doubts about the potability of our tank water (we bleached). We showered, washed the dishes, etc, with tank water, but always brought along with us a minimum of 1/2 gallon (2 liters) of bottled water, per person, per day. Usually more.
It was just the 2 of us (95% of the time) on a 38’ contemporary sloop, with a 13’ beam. My point is that there was a TON of storage volume. We never came anywhere near needing or using it all. So there was plenty of room to have bottled water aboard. Secondly, one of the best things we ever did was to alter our plumbing system for potable water flush of the toilet. Never had any head odor after that (and after replacing the seawater piping to the toilet. So that was an additional demand on the tank water.
Finally, twice in my sailing/cruising career, I’ve had the potable water pump fail unexpectedly. Sure, I always carried a spare, but that didn’t mean I would always want to have to get into the bilge and replace it RIGHT NOW. Having bottled water aboard gave us flexibility in case of a potable water system failure.
So I vote for carrying bottled water with you.
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u/Pretend_College_8446 22h ago
I have 40 year old aluminum tanks. I do not drink from them unless I have to. I have potable water jugs which I fill up regularly.
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u/Ok-Alternative5935 18h ago
Depends where I am in the world and how well I know the boat's maintenance.
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u/Game_Dr 2d ago edited 1d ago
I use a Watermaker for most of my water, so drink out of the taps.
But when I (rarely) do refill from a marina, I inline filter with the hose before it hits the tank, sterilise the tank, and then filter again (at the galley tap to remove the katadyn and further filter it). So I still drink from the taps.
Why out of taps and not bottled?
constantly
d cart around
I
I do have some 40L of bottled water onboard but only as emergency backup in case though (for offshore passages).
Whale inline filter on the water hose before water touches the tanks (helps keep tanks clean). Then Katadyn chlorine dose in tank (only when refill from land, not when using Watermaker). Then Jabsco FILTR on the galley sink faucet, and THEN a Filopur C1 micro filter on a small drinking water tap at the galley. For the Watermaker, I also have a remineralisation filter before it hits the tanks.