Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Hilton Head Island: Quench Sea; work

I thank Brett for bringing a startlingly low cost hand operated water maker to my attention manufactured by a company called Quench Sea.

https://www.quenchsea.world/

I had not known of them.

I have given more thought to using such a device on GANNET and with her quick motion it would be difficult, even often impossible, unless I were willing to put a fitting through her hull, which I am not.  GANNET has no through hull fittings and I intend to keep her that way.  I would have to dip a bucket over the side, pull it on board, and pump without it falling or splashing over.  I read a comment that a sailor might produce more sweat in hand pumping than he did pure water.  That might be true.  However I have bookmarked the Quench Seas site and if they are still in business two years from now I expect I will buy a device from them and take it on GANNET.  It will not take up much room and might be useful in an undesired emergency.


Yesterday I biked to GANNET at 7 am, spread out an old bathmat to soften the dock, lay down, and waxed and polished the port side of the hull.  This took two hours.  The first was pleasant, the second hot, with several water breaks.  I found a few places I missed touching up, but it is done.  When I left at 9 I walked my bike around to the B dock and looked back at the little boat.  She passes my myopic sight test.

This morning I was again at GANNET at 7 am and spent the next hour and a half removing the five old cockpit sheet bags which were falling apart, a job I thought would take thirty minutes.  That it took longer was not a big surprise.  I knew that each bag had four anchor hooks.  I thought they were screwed into the fiberglass, but found that they were bolted, so a lot of climbing into the cabin to attach a vise grip to a nut, then back up to the cockpit to unscrew, repeat, although I was grateful that the bag in the back of the cockpit was held only by bolts.  No nuts.  It would have been a blind reach to get them on back there and so obviously I didn’t.  Laziness rewarded.  I then filled the holes with epoxy putty on the outside and covered them on the inside with Life Seal.

Weather permitting tomorrow I sand the cockpit and maybe paint.  I am getting to the end of the list.


4 comments:

  1. For the Quench Sea device, I should think you'd be able to run an intake hose over the side or off the aft end and clamp it in place somehow, thus avoiding the need for a thru-hull or clumsy bucket.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have thought of that, Justin, but I don’t think it would work at GANNET’s usual sailing speed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They have another relatively cheap device in the works that involves lowering a canister to 300-500 meters and hauling it back up to get 1.5L with no pumping. But I can't see being able to haul it back in if the boat has any kind of way on. https://www.quenchsea.world/pages/reel

    ReplyDelete
  4. No way I am going to lower something several hundred meters and then haul it back up. A non-starter.

    ReplyDelete