TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Est Water Use Per Day

Planning itinerary for trip in late May with 11 on board. Any thoughts on estimated gals. of water used per day, per person on board? We conserve and use water sparingly but trying to get idea so I can include stops to refill water. TIA

Appears you are asking about water kept in storage tanks.onboard. in general, I wouldn't recommend drinking that water, but use bottled water for that purpose.

Does the yacht have a water maker? If so, just run water maker daily. If not, then you may need to refill tanks.

So the primary uses of water after that is for cleaning dishes and for personal showers. How crew takes showers greatly affects water use. If they turn on shower, get wet, and turn it off to lather up and then rinse, water can last longer than you think. If they use it like they are home then you will be refilling every three days. So it depends.

I agree with Carolina, we've always brought jugs of water for coffee/drinking and left the watermaker/tanks for washing. My wife just bought one of these portable water filter things and we'll give that a try on our upcoming trip to see how that works. Frankly I think it's more trouble that its worth.

We generally see 10 gallons per crew member per day when we have less salty guests. Christine and I got by with 5 gallons per day total while we lived aboard for 6 years. So, there's a range for you - 2.5 to 10 gallons per day.

Cheers, RickG

Thanks Rick, I was thinking 10 gals day p/person max

I think 10 gallons per person per day is a good number. My wife and I are liveaboards and pre-water maker we were around 5 gallons, after 3 years with a water maker we’re closer to 10 gallons. We don’t use bottled water but we always did during our chartering days.

For drinking water only:

4 adults, for 10 day charter days:

For initial purchase, should get us most of the way. Then top off at Trellis Bay on day 7 or so.

1 Gallon Jug / day start off with 8 jugs
Mainly for coffee and other cooking.

8 or 12 oz bottles. 2 per day / person
If 24 / case then start off with 3 cases.

Of course we will have other liquids but I hope they do not dehydrate us.

What do you think?

Our family of four drinks a lot of water, so this may be more than normal. However, we drink about 3 gallons of water a day between the four of us in the BVI (we don’t drink sodas, etc. though). This includes making coffee and using it for cooking.

Years ago I and most of my crew members started taking a "sailor's shower", and that has saved a lot of water! For me, a sailor's shower has a five-step process:

1) Jump off the boat with as little clothing as you're comfortable with
2) Get back on the boat and rinse off on the transom
3) Apply soap and shampoo
4) Jump off the boat
5) Get back on the boat and rinse off on the transom

My wife grabbed a 24 ounce water purifier unit (the kind you force a plunger with membrane through). We used this to refill our two one gallon water jugs with water maker water. It worked well for us.