[I originaly posted this on a cruising site and thought it worth reposting here on the Blog as we start to get close to November, when all the new cruising boats typically start heading for Mexico from California]

Cruising Myth Number 27 relates to sizing a watermaker to fit your needs. Every single time the discussion of how you should size your watermaker comes up either on a BB cruising site, or in some "expert advice Glossy Mag", they either fall right into cruising myth No 27.

The Myth goes like this and is often said or written in a style of a wise old grandfather passing on sage advise:

"Now be careful "Joe Newby Cruiser", be sure to not buy a watermaker with too large a capacity, because it's not good for your unit to sit for a few days without running. Calculate your water usage, determine your tankage and then buy a unit comenserate to your needs.

Ha ha ha ha...folks, let's get honest here and stop beating around the feel-good bush! The only reason anyone doesn't buy a larger watermaker is because it would cost another few thousand dollars added to the already totally outrageous cost!

We have been out cruising now for a year and we have NEVER....EVER....DOUBLE NEVER heard someone say, or heard rumors of anyone saying:

"Ya know, I should have bought the next size smaller of watermaker. I just can't seem to go through my water fast enough to run the unit every few days and am sinserely conserned about the life of my RO membrans due to inactivity"

Out here in Reality Land (aka Cruising) the conversations usually go more like this:

"Man Rich, I'll tall ya. I'm sick and tired of having to run my watermaker so much, the noise and AMPs sucked down are killing me. I would have loved that larger system, but shit, my watermaker already ran me $5K and I just couldn't fork out another $2K for the next larger output size. By the way, you said you have a water maker, what size is it anyway?"

I then respond with the following, making sure to only give the my watermaker production rate part of the answer while they are in mid-drink of their beer, for reasons I will explain later:

"Oh...it's a simple home-built job, nothing fancy like yours, with all the automatic back-flushing and push button ease. Mine's 100% manual and we only get...oh..(this is where I pause to make sure they are drinking)..about 50 GALLONS PER HOUR out of ours"

They then spit out their beer upon hearing our water output, while I take a sip of my beer and look away like it's no big deal. (he he he...I know I'm a bad!)

After they clean the spit up off their T-shirt, we open up my sail locker and then the tour of our watermaker goes into full swing.

I think the whole Myth is there to give people justification for not having a larger unit.

"Oh, I would have bought larger unit, but my calculations showed this to be my optimum size for membrane life."

Well, let me bust the Myth right open. You can never have too much fresh water while cruising...it just can't happen, not when you are out cruising with a stop in a marina only to make repairs or to leave your boat for a return trip home. We have a fresh water anchor rinse down. We rinse down the boat at least every few days. We wash SCUBA and snorkel gear after EVEY use and we take showers AT LEAST once a day with four people aboard! In short, we easily use about 20-25gals of water per day so we then run our watermaker every over day to keep the tanks (two 50gal) topped off.

I can see it now, you're thinking, "you're not a real cruiser, Rich. A real cruiser would use salt water to wash (and rust) his cookware and only shower when he smells"!

Well then, call me a fake cruiser then. In fact, I think I'll go take a shower now because I feel some beads of sweat forming on my forrowed brow for having to listen to all the "experts" tell me to make sure I don't get too large a water maker!

PS: If you want any "romantic activity" while out cruising where it's in the 90's with above 50% humidity...then Size Does Matter. Go as big as you can afford on your water maker friends, you won't be sorry