Flooded on the mooring

Freshwater hosepipes can be seen connected to lots of boats in marinas. A hose is connected from a tap on the dock to a pressure reducing inlet valve on the boat, which reduces municipal water pressure, usually from around 60lb down to 35lb. This pressurises all the boat’s water outlets meaning you don’t need to run the boat’s (usually noisy) electric pump when shoreside.

There’s a more even and usually stronger flow than a pulsating pressure pump, which is used for, say, a shower, and it’s silent with no drain on batteries.

Of course, water is fresh from the shore, too, instead of from tanks.

My 45ft schooner Britannia had the system installed by the boatbuilders. The ½in diameter plastic water pipes were therefore as old as the boat, circa 1978, with a maze of connectors all in a tangled mess in the bottom of the bilge. I was frequently repairing or replacing sections which leaked, or which cracked from time to time, and which the automatic bilge pump would always alert me to by switching itself on. I was very aware the whole system needed upgrading – but so did many other things on the boat. We didn’t live aboard, so it was more a question of fixing it as and when it broke.

It was always my practice to turn the water off at the dock whenever I left the boat, even for a short time, and when I left it