Public Discussion Forum

Hi all,

We’re going to replace our old watermaker with something in the 400-600gpd range. We got a quote for 15k for a Bluewater Express. Thoughts on whether this is in the right price range? We have a Selene 47 and do 2-3 weeks cruises.

Thanks!

A couple of thoughts:

Size the watermaker to your water usage. Ideally the unit can fill your usage in a single reasonable run, rather than running it for an hour each day. In our case we made water when we had used half of our 200 gallon tank, takes a bit over 4 hours to fill it near to the top, plus a bit extra for the flush. With a perfect run we'd finish with 193 gallons in the tank.

Determine your power source and run times. In our case the genset works at anchor as we also use the genset for operating the dinghy lift (twice daily for dinghy launch in the morning and retrieval at night, dinghy does not stay in the water overnight), running the washer/dryer, and baking in the convection oven. What we don't like is running the genset offshore when we're already running the Cummins main engine.

Determine how often you're likely to leave the boat and not be using the watermaker; once the membranes are wet they require freshwater flushing, typically at 5-7 day intervals, to remain viable. The alternative is to chemically pickle the unit, that can last for 3-4 months before the pickling solution should be changed or the unit put back into service. Pickling is expensive and is not kind to the membranes, it's not something you want to do lightly. Know how you are going to accomplish this if you're not at the boat.

Roadrunner came with a Village Marine Squirt 600 gallon per day watermaker installed in 2012, we replaced the membranes, serviced the high pressure pump, and had the high pressure pump motor bearings replaced when we purchased the boat in 2024. It then produced 2900 gallons for us this March to June in the Bahamas. Right now it's on a 5 day flush schedule as I'm on the boat, later on I'll be pickling it for the summer.

I've installed and operated a Spectra watermaker, I found Spectra no better or worse than the Village Marine unit - both require periodic servicing and maintenance. Spectra parts are very specific to the Spectra and I only purchased through them. The Village Marine unit is more generic and I think it's a lot simpler, and I get parts only from Parker (they bought Village Marine).

To use the Village Marine unit we need to run the genset to produce 13 amps at 110vAC power to run the high pressure pump motor - that's pretty dumb when we're powering along with the Cummins engine. Our intention is to add a second 110vAC inverter to the boat, and possibly add a second 190AH alternator to the Cummins - that will let us operate the watermaker without having to start up the genset (e.g., when we're powering along with the Cummins on multi-day runs).

A lot of time is spent at anchor and that's when we'll decide which day we're going to make water, and plan for laundry and baking that day - which can lead to an all day genset run, lots of water, lots of clean linens afterwards, plus cookies!

- rob

Roadrunner

2007 Selene 49 deep hull 48-029

Love Bluewater Product - We ripped our pesky Spectra and replaced it with the Blue Water Legend 1500 Component using 3 short membranes, 220V Single Phase, and it's been a game changer in many ways. I chose Bluewater after an exhaustive search for brands that support NMEA2000 monitoring and control! I appreciate having control in the pilot house and didn't want to run cables from the Laz nor to purchase yet another expensive proprietary control panel. Bluewater's NMEA2000 implementation worked as per spec. We have control over activation, shutdown, and flushing anywhere we have access to N2KView. It's convenient, and I am able to monitor and manually trigger the flushing progress remotely in the off-season. We get an N2KView generated email every time a flush starts along with water tank levels, etc. We also discovered that Bluewater offered a ½ height media filter that would fit in our cabinet. So we installed that instead of the Commercial filters, which are quite costly ($125 ea) relative to the standard filters ($15/ea). In the end, we fit the Master Panel, Low Pressure Pump, Filters including the media filter, the product filters including Product Water Ph filter, all inside a set of cabinets in the Laz. Unfortunately, the only models that Bluewater makes with the NMEA2000 port on are the Legend(s), but it is not a cost+ feature; it is included; all you have to do is request it when ordering so they install the NMEA2000 connector. Finally, we shopped for a water maker that we could power with our 5KW 230V inverter, and the Legend fit the bill with a soft start module.

Of note, Bluewater spec's their production levels a bit more strictly perhaps than other manufacturers. When they market a 60GPH model, that is strictly defined as 60GPH when the source water is 25C. In the northwest, we rarely find water above 70F, so our actual production ranges between 40-55 GPH. When we have been in warmer waters, we've seen production levels at and above 60GPH. Our Spectra was similar - Rated at 40GPH, we generally realized a level closer to 30GPH in the colder NW waters.

Love the ideal of moving it out of the engine room and into the laz.