Skipper’s Tip, 5/2/2011

Top off the water tanks!

Even before you reach the stage where you are overnighting on boats, it is a good idea to get in the habit of topping off the water tanks before you leave the dock. Why?

  1. When you do go out over-night at some point, you won’t forget to fill them because you’ll be in the habit!
  2. Filling and using the water in the tanks helps to keep them fresh. Whenever possible, find a use for the fresh-water on board. Use it to flush your head system when you visit the pump-out!
  3. Keeping them full keeps air out of the tanks and without the air space, there is not room for growth to contaminate the tanks.
  4. The boat is designed with the weight of the full tanks in mind. The extra weight, distributed in the right areas of the boat, will help keep things comfortable on a windy San Francisco Bay day.

Use the water hose at the dock to top off the tanks before you leave. Even though we don’t normally drink out of the tanks in the fleet boats, we still consider it “potable water”, so avoid using hoses at places like pump-out stations to fill the tanks. These hoses are often dropped into waste-tank fill fittings to flush out waste tanks.

This entry was posted in Skipper's Tip and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply