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Shore water hook-up Cabo

Discussion in 'Cabo Yacht' started by Breckster, Dec 11, 2019.

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  1. mapism

    mapism Senior Member

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    Myself and my wife also overnight on the boat regularly, sometimes also with guests.
    But I never closed/opened the shore supply before going to bed/upon wake up.
    By the way, that would restrict also the use of the head, if like me you have Tecma or any other fresh water flush bowls.
    My reasoning, aside from fully trusting the safety of my system, is that even in the worst case I would be immediately waken up by a bilge alarm.
    On the other hand, I do have the habit of closing both the onboard and dockside valves whenever I leave the boat unattended, as Breckster said.
    But that's just one of several others OCD rituals which most of us boaters develop over time.
    In the extremely rare occasions when I forgot that, I was never worried enough to bother calling the marina and ask them to close the valves...
  2. Beau

    Beau Senior Member

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    You can hook up to a dock supply if your vessel is designed to handle it. But, you should never leave the boat without closing the cockpit valve. If you rely on the internal pressure valve or integrity of all the lines and fittings your courting disaster or have a gambler's streak, imo.

    I generally use my tank water for the reason already stated - less chance for stale water when you're at anchor. We fortunately have 240 gallons aboard so we can run a full weekend without retrictions.
  3. mapism

    mapism Senior Member

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    Well, I'm neither saying that the risk of a leak is zero, nor I'm interested to convince anyone to change their habits.
    I'm just saying that a dock FW supply can include safety devices (pressure limiter and water block) that make such risk practically negligible.
    The risk of a fire when the boat is left with the battery charger on is much higher, for instance.
    In fact, coming to think of it, I can't remember to have ever heard of a boat sank by the dock water supply, while electrical fires are relatively common.

    Anyway, nothing wrong with using always the tank of course.
    I wouldn't have any problems to do the same by the way, with a 1500 liters capacity (i.e., approximately 400 gal).
    But my train of thought about stale water is the other way round, kind of:
    I prefer to leave the tank almost empty while docked, and refill it right before going out.
    It only takes hours for water to go stale, anyhow - in fact, we only used bottled water for drinking, also while cruising.
  4. PacBlue

    PacBlue Senior Member

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    I would venture to say that more boats take on water in some form than have electrical fires. The biggest culprit imo is leaving the boat unattended with the A/C system running and an onboard failure with the raw water cooling system.

    Have not seen any battery charger related fires in 40 years on the docks in my region.
  5. mapism

    mapism Senior Member

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    Ok, but what we were strictly talking of dock FW supply...