I have to echo Captain Jay's comments on the watermaker benefits. The top 3 upgrades we made to our Saba 50 Cuvée were the installation of a watermaker, water filtration system, and conversion to freshwater flush toilets.

CYOA installed a Blue Water Desalination unit that produces 25 gph. It operates on 220v AC so we simply turn it on (as needed) while we run the generator in the late afternoon to charge the house battery and to power the A/C. The incremental diesel fuel burn is trivial. In addition to the usual seawater pre-filters (10 micron & 5 micron sediment cartridges), CYOA also installed an upstream diatomaceous earth media filter (think pool filter) that filters down to 30 microns and has its own backwash system. This has really extended the lifetime of the two cartridge filters. I ran the system in the opaque Chesapeake Bay last summer and the cartridge filters stayed very clean. The watermaker automatically performs a carbon-filtered freshwater backflush after each use.

The product water goes through a carbon block filter before it goes to the water tank. CYOA also installed a PURA three-pass water filtration system for the freshwater system. All water from the freshwater tanks (regardless of source) goes through a 5 micron sediment filter, a carbon block filter, and then the UV filter before it's sent to the taps, icemaker, freshwater flush heads, and showers. The filters are changed regularly.

The water has no odor or off-taste, and it saves lugging and then disposing of dozens of plastic bottles.

There are also none of the usual marine plumbing odors associated with seawater flush toilets.

We've only had two minor maintenance items with the watermaker - the boost pump impeller was damaged when it sucked up a plastic bag into the sea strainer and ran dry, and the salinity meter had to be recalibrated (a quick fix) when it starting rejecting all the product water.