Plan B- The Life Raft

I am in the middle of reading the Voyagers Handbook, which is a 500 page guide to everything one needs to know about getting you and your boat ready for a cruise around the world. While, Jenny and I aren't planning a trip around the world, our cruise is going to cover approximately 10,000 miles (I used Google Earth to check the math). The book is VERY DENSE and full of good information, much of which is above my current sailing knowledge. I am studying hard to understand all the concepts, but the books gives good high level examples, while providing diagrams and charts full of specs and whatnot. It's not exactly light fun reading, but I am definitely growing my knowledge from this book. Plus it's a great book to reference in the future when we are going to be looking at equipping our boat for our voyage.
Anyways, I came to the chapter about life rafts and thought the subject deserved a blog entry!

In preparation for our voyage we want to strike a balance between being TOTALLY responsible and safe while keeping our bank account floating above zero.

One such areas where we have to strike a balance is our plan if we are out at sea and our sailboat sinks.

The Voyagers Handbook advocates a broad spectrum of options in terms of emergency vehicles in the case that your sailboat is sinking. The most basic form of a liferaft is using the sailboat's dinghy. Dinghys are the small boats that you use to get to shore when the sailboat is at anchor. The most advanced would be expensive self inflating liferafts that can hold 6 people.

Dinghy:

Expensive Ocean Rated Survival Raft:

While we plan on NOT sinking, we also plan on having a plan B. At this current moment we are considering a less expensive self inflating life raft meant for coastal cruising. Life rafts that are designed for coastal cruising boats are not as burly as the ocean rated raft above, but serves the same purpose and it significantly cheaper.

We haven't settled on a model yet, but this one is a possibility. For $1000, the peace of mind knowing that you have a plan b is a small price to pay.

Because you asked: Going to the bathroom on a sailboat

Hello again.
Jenny and I did not grow up sailing nor do we know many people who done a lot of sailing. Because of this, we have gotten a lot of questions from our friends and family concerning everything from weather to fishing to communications. I imagine some of you who are reading this may have some questions too, so I'll attempt to answer some of these in this post and future ones.

Question: How does one use the bathroom on the boat?

Answer: That's a fair question! Many sailboats have a bathroom on board (the bathroom is called a "head" on a boat). Many look like a standard toilet, with water in the bowl that you flush. When you are done doing your business, you manually pump the waste from the bowl to a holding tank that resides on the boat. When you are at a marina, you can get your tank pumped out, usually for a small fee. Maritime law states that you can pump out your waste tank if you are at least 3 miles off the coast. I am pretty sure that's what the big cruise ships do when they are out at sea.... Just so ya know...
These standard marine toilets are the cause of much frustration. All of my research shows that: #1, they stink, and #2 they are always breaking. Even on the nice new sailboat Jenny and I lived on for while we got our Charter Licenses, the head smelled terrible, and we didn't even have the guts to attempt a #2.

This is a standard Marine toilet- Black thing is the pump that you manually use to evacuate the bowl.


Here's all the stuff you need to use a standard marine toilet.... strainers, pumps, tanks, hoses, seacocks.... It's a lot of stuff. Because so this style of toilet requires so many different components to function properly that means that all that stuff has the potential (and will) break. Leaving you with a smelly, nasty problem to fix. No thanks.

Based on our experience with standard marine toilet, as well as all the research we've done, we are planning to have a composting toilet on our boat. A composting toilet basically consists of two containers- one for solids and one for liquids. Keeping solids and liquids separate is the key to eliminating smell. We will keep peat moss, coconut husks, and some other organic material in there that will dry out solid waste, which is the main source of stink. When the bucket is full, the waste material is dumped into a garbage bag, where it can be throw out in the garbage, or buried where it will turn into fertilizer. The liquid container can be dumped overboard into the water. The true beauty of the composting toilet is the fact it's basically a bucket, which doesn't require many different components to work (just don't break the bucket). Not only is the composting toilet more robust, but it's more environmentally friendly, as you end up making fertilizer.

The bowl view of the composting toilet. Big hole is for solids, little hole for liquids. If you are wondering what that tube is on the left, it's the air vent for the solids compartment. It's vented through the roof of the boat. Many of these composting toilets have a little solar powered fan in the vent to evacuate gases from the holding tank.

Here's the side view of the composting toilet. The pointed thing on the bottom right of the toilet is an auger that mixes the waste with the peat moss, allowing for quicker breakdown of organic material (turning poop into fertilizer).