As a classic-boat sailor, I’ve long held that simpler is the better. I still think this is true: a simpler boat is cheaper, she has less gadgets to break down and there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing you’re able to handle a bit of discomfort.
Thus, for a long time, I sailed boats most cruising sailors today would consider downright primitive. My current boat, Celeste, a coldmolded wooden sloop with a waterline of only 28ft, would probably also be considered fairly rudimentary by modern standards. And yet she has a key piece of kit that has made life aboard significantly more luxurious. A watermaker.
Desalinators appeared in my life when I was planning a voyage to the Arctic. The Alaskan North Slope might have plenty of oil, but. So I investigated emergency watermakers—small, hand-powered ones made by Katadyn—the sort to go in the abandon ship bag. This led me in the end to go with both a ditch-bag unit and the smallest electrical desalinator that made sense for our kind of sailing, the Katadyn 40E.
