[Public-List] Fitting for cruising Part 1

[Bill Wallace]

Do you have a picture of your composting toilet installation and which one is 
it?  I also have a liner boat and I was worried about the height/size of the 
unit in the head and whether it would stick out.  

Thanks,
Bill.


----- Original Message ----
From: Richard Mair <ramair49 at gmail.com>
To: Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all <Public-List at lists.alberg30.org>
Sent: Fri, October 22, 2010 4:09:19 PM
Subject: [Public-List] Fitting for cruising Part 1

Hello,

We should start by explaining a little bit about why we chose to do things
in the way we did when we first outfitted Into The Blue for traveling.  We
had already spent time living aboard, and sailing in different kinds of
conditions, so we had an idea of what we wanted.  From the beginning we
concentrated on the kinds of things that would help us to stay independent
and travel as cheaply as possible, so our equipment included solar panels, a
wind generator, and a composting head.  These were very important.

The solar panels and the wind generator let us recharge our batteries (we
used one set of two 12 volt batteries for house and starting).  We very
rarely needed to run our engine to make power, except on long downwind
passages or in foggy conditions when we needed to use the radar.  The
composting head allowed us to close off one seacock, and remove the holding
tank which was replaced with an extra water tank.  Then we balanced the
weight of that tank by installing another on the other side, and set up a
system that would allow us to draw from each tank separately so that we
could also keep them balanced while we were using them.

That meant that we ended up with a water supply of 50 gallons, enough for
the two of us for more than a month when voyaging.  When we are on a longish
passage, we use water sparingly, bring juices for drinking to supplement the
water we use for tea and coffee and cooking, and bathe using sea water
(unless it's too cold).

While we are talking about the area around the water tanks we should mention
that ours is a liner boat.  We are not familiar with the layout of the
vee-berth area in a non-liner boat, but in ours there is a lot of space for
storage above the liner and below the boards on which the cushions rest.
When putting supplies on board for voyaging or when we are unsure of what we
will find at our next stop this is one area that we use for storing food.
We pack things like beans, rice, lentils, soup powders, dried fruit and
biscuits - things that are relatively light and keep for a long time - in
watertight containers and put them up here.

The other places we use for food storage are below the floor (cans and
juices, heavier things) and we built a separate area on the starboard side,
by where we had our fireplace, for storing fruits, vegetables and, when
under way, the ingredients for meals for the next five days or so.  We also
stored some food in the lockers over the table/berth on the starboard side,
and in the cooler.  We did not use the cooler as a cooler; we used it for
storing food we wanted to be able to reach easily instead.  We had a
separate cooler, kept on the starboard side, which we used as a cooler when
we wanted one.  We very rarely used a cooler, since most things can be
stored safely without refrigeration as long as they are bought in small
containers.  There are books that will help with learning about this.

As you can probably guess by now, our starboard berth is no longer used for
sleeping.  Instead it has seating for one, space for storage, is where the
table stays most of the time, and has space for a cooler.  We'll try to
describe what we did on the starboard side in the next message.

Richard and Margaret
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