Why is this page here and not on the WOA website?
Recently the Westsail Owners' Association website was moved to a new server that would allow the site to be more easily updated and maintained. While the basic content was successfuly transferred into the new site, a new Forum was started from scratch and the old Forum was converted to a collection of 41 PDF documents.Most of the Westsails are somewhere around 35 years old. They were well-built boats and most of the boats that were built are still sailing today... many half way 'round the world. But like all classic sailboats, they will all have problems over time, and most of the problems are relatively similar from boat to boat. There's a fair degree of likelihood that any problem that might come up has already been tackled by another owner. It's also fairly likely that the solution is buried somewhere in the archives of the Forum.
Long ago, I started downloading and archiving the entire Westsail.org website, with periodic refreshes. I did this mainly because I wanted a localized version of the site that I could access while cruising remote corners of the world, with limited access to the Internet. Perhaps the biggest benefit, however, has been the major improvement in my ability to search more than 11,000 posts efficiently.
It's likely that the old forum data could have been integrated with the new application, creating one contiguous and searchable source of information. But this would have required substantial programming and data manipulation and the decision was made by the WOA to take the current course. I therefore created this application as a means to preserve the seven years worth of resources that I consider to be incredibly valuable information for current and future Westsail owners. I hope you find it as useful as I have.
Jack Webb
1975 Westsail 32, Hull #438
svDrifter@gmail.com
Thread: "Spectra Watermaker"
12,268 posts on 2,444 threads • From Mar 07, 2004 - Jan 08, 2012
How to Make an Effective Search
Primary Settings and Expectations
- Search "How" - There are two basic ways to make a search for content on this site and the methods will typically give you very different results.
- If you search with a "How" setting of "Text Strings", your search will look for one or more occurrences of the individual words, but these words need not be adjacent to one another. This method will typically give you the greatest number of results.
- If you search with a "How" setting of "Full Phrase", your submitted search words must all appear in the post, and they must be also be contiguous, and they must appear in the exact order entered. This setting will typically give you the most specific results, but understand that users do not always type things the way you expect.
- Search "Which" - You can modify your search results by determining whether or not all words in your search string must appear in the result set.
- If you search with a "Which" setting of "Any Word", your search will look for occurrences of one or more of the individual words. This method will typically give you the largest result set.
- If you search with a "Which" setting of "All Words", your search will look only for occurrences where all words appear. This method will typically give you the most specific result set and is a good way to limit results where one or more of the words is fairly common.
- Search "Where" - Determine which sections of the messages contain your search string.
- If you search with a "Where" setting of "Message Text", your search will look for occurrences only within the body of the message. This method will typically give you a smaller result set, but the does not give you unwanted results where the search string appears in a given user's screen name.
- If you search with a "Where" setting of "Text & Author", your search will add matches in the user name section to search results. This is especially useful where you want to find all occurrences of posts by a given user.
- Search "What" - This is where you must enter the word or words you wish to find.
- Simply enter the word or words you want to find into the box, separating the words by single spaces.
Additional Settings & Notes
- Capitalization - All searches are performed in a case-insensitive manor. As such, proper capitalization is not a requirement for any match to be successful.
- Punctuation - All non-alphanumeric characters (excluding spaces) are removed from the string, prior to the search. Also, the search is performed against a special search record which has been treated similarly. This assures that items are not omitted due to differences in punctuation, etc.
- Special Terms - There are special situations where non-punctuation searches are not productive. Take the example of a search for Perkins 4-108. This phrase would actually not be found because one of the resulting words ("4") is only a single character in length. Therefore, the search is also performed against the entire phrase at the same time. This example is somewhat special in its own right, because the phrase is sometimes found as Perkins 4.108 and sometimes as Perkins 4-108. It would be beneficial, therefor, to search it both ways.
- Partial Words - In order to maximize efficiency, the search engine was designed to search partial words as well. For example, if you try to find information on anchoring but don't get sufficient results, you can simply search on the word anchor. This will return results for anchoring as well.
- "Stop Words" - Google, like most other search sites, does not consider extremely common words when executing a search. This practice speeds up searching and reduces unintentional matches. These filtered words are known as stop words. While the list changes from time to time, there are currently over 650 such "Stop Words". The Westsail.info site follows the same practice when performing a string search, but performst the search as entered in a phrase search.
- Start Broad - For best results, start your searches very broad (only the most important key words) and add additional words to reduce results. If you are searching for something very specific, change the setting from Words to Phrase.
Spectra Watermaker
|
Stephen and Lu Ann Yoder |
Any interest out there in trying to work up a group buy for a Spectra watermaker?
-Steve Yoder |
|
Randell 'Randy' Kocurek |
What's a Spectra?
|
|
John |
I would be interested...
|
|
Stephen and Lu Ann Yoder |
http://www.spectrawatermakers.com/
Got my eye on a Ventura 150. I'll contact the company and see if they have any interest and how many folks we would need for a discount. |
|
Don Montgomery and Lana Nelson |
In my humble opinion. This is by far the best system available and the only one with a reliability factor worth having. With that being said, I have priced them and they are not in my budget. Let me know if you get a group buy deal from them. Best regards.
|
|
David Beardsley |
Aloha, I would be interested.
David B. s/v Asylum. |
|
Stephen and Lu Ann Yoder |
update: The Spectra factory doesn't do direct sales and directed me to the sales rep for the Pacific Northwest (since that's where I am). I talked to Larry Scildwachter at Emerald Harbor Marine in Seattle. He was pretty vague on what to expect discount-wise. Said that he'd have to consult with the factory. He did say that if only one or two of us make a purchase that he'd at least give us the boat show sale price along with a 'goodie bag' of spare filters, etc. One time he mentioned that if enough of us were interested the discount could approach factory price (I assume that means his cost).
Larry suggested that I get a conversation started to see who was interested and to get questions answered. He seems very knowledgable about watermakers and is happy to talk about them. He just doesn't like to answer the same question over and over. He usually gets potential buyers together in a room and get a conversation going. I told him that would be impractical here due to geography but we could use the discussion board as our 'room'. His suggestion for smaller Westsails and BCCs (I mentioned the bleed-over from here to the BCC group) was the Ventura Deluxe without the electronic control panel. This is a 6.3 gph unit that you turn on manually, test the product with a handheld TDS meter and, when it meets specs, valve it to your water tank. The $2400 add-on MPC-5000 controller takes care of starting and stopping, testing and revalving, all at the push of a button. He said this is great for cruisers who spend weeks at a time off their boats exploring inland, etc. because it has an automatic circuit which precludes the need for pickling and unpickling each time you leave or return, but not necessary for cruisers who spend most of their time on their boats. Anyway, any questions you'd like to have Larry answer? -Steve |
|
Terry Shoup |
I don't think I can afford to join in, but just for laughs, what's the cost on these? You mentioned a $2400 add-on -- that scares the hell out me, if that's just for an add-on!
|
|
Jim Focha and Julie Gwin |
A couple of thoughts. Make sure you know where and how you're going to install it. It will take up more room than you think. We have a Catalina 300 with the MPC controller and it took up almost the entire quarter berth even with the membrane and and clark pump mounted on the ceiling. The filters and controls are located on engine bulkhead/wall.
The MPC is voltage sensitive and will scramble at 16 V. We had this happen comming down Baja due to the wind generator. You have to have the right cable and software to reprogram, which I had left at home, so I had to pay someone to reprogram it. The watermaker can be run in manual mode so this doesn't stop production. Also the software is available to only those who took the factory class to become a "roving repairman". Aside from inland travel the MPC controler is useful for short trips home. The manual said two weeks and you shold pickle it but we have gone over three weeks. |
|
Stephen and Lu Ann Yoder |
Also, as far as a group buy goes, I'm not so sold on the Spectra that I would ignore everything else. My main criteria is size, power consumption, and cost to operate. With a 79 gallon fresh water tank on our W28, we only need to have the capacity to basically replace our daily use. Also considering the Little Wonder or one of the No Frills units by Village Marine Tec.
-Steve |
|
Jim Focha and Julie Gwin |
Spectra had the lowest power consumption per gal. of any water maker when we researched them. We feel the Spectra is a major reason we operate on just 210 watts of solar while cruising. Cost of operation are just filters which are reusable. we used two sets in a year. There are Spectra dealers all over the world even in places like the Canary Islands, so technical support is available everywere. Out cruising we have found 6 gal/hr to be the minimum people were happy with.
Cruisers with less production seemed to be greatly disappointed. Some friends we buddy boated with are replacing their one year old Katyden with a Spectra due to production and power consumption. For real tight instalations the Spectra can be divided into components and placed at differant locations. Ours is rated at 12.5 gal/hr.@15amps but we are getting a little under 14 GPH. in the warmer water of Cortez. We use 12-15 gal. per day somtimes more rarely less. I would liked to up one size but don't want to push our energy budget. |
|
Norm Rhines |
Some related info.
The Little Wonder a No Frills units by Village Marine Tec. I installed and have used this compact unit for a bit of time. Not to $$$$ on cost and we are get about 7 to 8 Gal/ hr on 16 amps. SO we only run the unit in the day we have 320 Watts of pannel so we only make about 5-10gal/day. I can say Spectra will be in bussiness for some time, as there profit (is somewhat high) on there units. so as long as they reinvest some they will be going strong for years to come. Two comments 1.) cleaning the membrain is a standard requirement as well as maintaining the filters and checking the conductivity (salt) (No mater your choice You are operating you own desal plant so don't expect to just push a botton and it will be self tending for weeks)they are real maintenance. 2.) The power is something to concider! the Spectra uses about 1.2Amps/Gal where others use about 2 Amps/Gal. and as they say power is money. also remember you normaly throw away the first 0.5 gal as it does not make spec. 3.) no mater what don't get air or clorine on the membrain. Best of luck: Norm If you are going the little wonder way e-mail me as there are a few additions which help the system run a little better. |
|
Stephen and Lu Ann Yoder |
Terry,
I haven't gotten a definite price yet (that's kind of scary in itself) but I believe the Ventura Deluxe without the MPC controller is around $5000 (Geez! no wonder we euphemistically refer to $1K as a 'boat unit'). |
|
Stephen and Lu Ann Yoder |
As I get deeper into this, I realize that I jumped the gun on trying to set up a group buy. I'm no longer completely sure what I want. It's easy to choose before you actually are in a position to part with money...then things get more difficult.
So, I'm going to terminate this thread as a 'group buy' subject and instead bring up a watermaker discussion on the 'Gear for the boat' page. Thanks for everyone's input so far. -Steve |
