How much water do you need?

LET’S JUST SAY the two of you are in mid-Pacific when your boat hits a whale. You have to abandon ship and climb into a life raft. Your first reaction is shock, and that’s likely to last a week or so until you can get your lives properly organized. By that, I mean organize shelter from the elements, work out a plan for navigation, keep a proper watch for passing ships, and find enough food and water to keep you alive.

One of your immediate priorities will be to ration the water supply. You’ve found four or five cans of fresh water inside the liferaft — about two gallons, if you’re lucky. How much should you dole out while you’re still in a state of shock, before you can think coherently about how to catch rainwater, or catch fish to squeeze the potable liquids out of them?

Does three small cups each per day sound about right? Can you actually live on only three cups a day? Each cup is about six ounces, so two gallons should last six days. We all know that most humans can last three days or so without water, and about a month without food, but at the end of six days you won’t have any water left.

So should you reduce your consumption to two cups a day each?  Will that allow you to maintain the strength you need, mental and physical, to do the organizing that needs to be done?

This is a problem that needs to be solved immediately because if you start out by drinking your normal daily ration of water you might run out too soon. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.  In the first few days and hours it would be all too easy to drink too much of that precious supply, so you should have given this problem some thought previously.

It’s not a problem often discussed in the media because every situation is different. Some lucky castaways might have solar stills with which to make fresh water, others might have packed hand-operated water makers in their panic bags. Some life rafts don’t have any water at all, which is something you don’t want to discover only when your boat sinks behind you.

So my advice is to read as many books as you can about survival at sea, and read them now, before you go. One of them is Steve Callahan’s Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea. His little single-handed sloop sank after hitting a whale in the Atlantic and he had to take to his six-man Avon inflatable, eventually ending up in Guadeloupe, West Indies.

Apart from the book, there’s a fine interview with Callahan on the Cracked website by Evan V. Symon. If you’re planning to go to sea you’ll find it very instructive:

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1340-5-things-i-learned-about-survival-while-i-was-lost-at-sea.html

Today’s Thought

My husband was getting his sea legs — re-reading Joseph Conrad with a side order of C. S. Forester.

— Enid Nemy, “In Search of Glamour on the Sea,” International Herald Tribune 15 Feb 85

Tailpiece

Little Johnny’s teacher asked him to spell weather.

He thought about it for a while and then said “W-A-E-I-T-H-R.”

“My goodness, remarked his teacher, “that’s the worst spell of weather we’ve had around here for years.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Safe drinking water

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR of the Walnut Street Gazeout (should be Gazette) says:

When I get out of here I’m gonna get me a sailboat and go cruising in the world’s wild places. The warm wild places. But I hear it can be difficult to get safe fresh water in some places, such as Mexico. Do I need a watermaker? Anyone?

Slugger Jo #15238, due for release 8/15/2010.

Well, if I can chip in here Slugger, I’d say forget the watermaker. Expensive and finicky and needs lots of electricity. You can get good water practically everywhere. It’s a myth that Mexican water is unsafe. If it was, there wouldn’t be any Mexicans. It might not taste like the water you’re used to, but your stomach doesn’t have taste buds so you’ll be all right.

Sometimes, of course, there is no option but to take on water from less than desirable sources. In that case, here’s what to do:

To sterilize 15 gallons of fresh water, add one teaspoonful of 5.25 percent household bleach such as Clorox.

The active ingredient, sodium hypochlorite, is toxic to humans as well as to germs, but it does its job swiftly and then breaks down about 10 minutes after being exposed to light and air. Leave the filler cap off the tank for 30 minutes to an hour to be sure the toxic chlorine gas has dissipated into the surrounding air, and be cautious when you first taste your purified water. It won’t taste as nice as imported mountain spring water but it won’t poison you and it will keep you alive, which is always a good thing.

A good way to test for safety is to pour some water into a glass and place your palm over the top. Shake the glass and then smell your hand. It should smell no more of chlorine than your usual city water does straight from the faucet — but a little extra chlorine taste won’t hurt, as long as it doesn’t burn your mouth or throat.

PS: Never add bleach to a tank connected to a reverse-osmosis watermaker. The chlorine will damage it.

Today’s Thought
Water, water everywhere
Atlantic and Pacific
But New York City’s got them beat
Our aqua is terrific!
— Ed Koch, mayor of NYC, Times 11 Jun 84

Boater’s’ Rules of Thumb, #37
Compass care. Nothing destroys a steering compass more quickly than heat and strong direct sunlight. When you’re not using it, keep it shaded and cool any way you can.

Tailpiece
Overhead at a Boy Scout meeting:
“Did you ever have one of those days when you felt just a little untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, discourteous, cowardly, and antagonistic toward those wretched old women who always wait for suckers to help them across the goddam road?”