When you’re crafting, purchasing, or maintaining your vessel, it can be easy to get caught up in the exciting specifics of boat care: the equipment you use to perform daily tasks, the engines and motors your boat needs, and other aesthetic or performance upgrades.

Other systems, such as your vessel’s marine sanitation device (MSD), can often go unnoticed. However, your MSD is crucial to the enjoyable, safe function of your boat. Just imagine what would happen if you didn’t have a properly working sewage treatment system. The resulting smells, sights, and gross sludge would be unpleasant, to say the least. 

While you’re spending time on your offshore vessel, it’s important to ensure that you can enjoy a safe, sanitary life at sea. For both your guests and your crew, this includes simply and effectively getting rid of the waste your personnel produces on a daily basis. 

Not only is this crucial for a pleasant atmosphere on your vessel, but it’s also required in regulations set forth by the International Marine Organization (IMO) and the United States Coast Guard. Failing to have a smoothly running wastewater system can net you serious fines, as well as an unhealthy environment for everyone aboard your vessel. 

Fortunately, there’s a simple way to ensure that your vessel’s waste management system is always taken care of. With a correctly sized marine wastewater system, you’ll be able to make sure your boat is safe in no time at all.

*Disclaimer: This article originally appeared on EXIM‘s website.

PROJECT FACTS

The Juniper project is in the East Mayaro Block (EM) off the south east coast of Trinidad and Tobago.

When you’re working on a boat or rig over a period of several days, there’s no getting around it: You’ll be using the facilities several times and, well, if your marine sanitation device isn’t maintained properly, that can result in less-than-aromatic situations.

It might seem like a small thing, but an unclean or stinky boat bathroom can definitely affect your quality of life. More than that, a perpetually unpleasant smell coming from your boat’s bathroom can signal a larger issue with your marine sanitation device or other systems aboard your vessel. What might be the root cause of this issue? Is there anything you can do about it? 

In this blog post, we’ll go over common problems that may arise with your marine sanitation device, as well as the ways you can work to make the problem (and the smell) disappear.

When you’re planning maintenance for your offshore oil rig or another large vessel like an FPSO, the plans you’re likely most interested in are those that pertain directly to oil production (or your end goals). After all, those machines are the reason you’re in the water. It’s easy to see how the time you spend maintaining those machines is well worth every second. 

However, there is a whole host of machines aboard your vessel that are equally important, if not more so. These are the systems that help support the safety and health of your crew while you’re out at sea. A prime example is your vessel’s hypochlorite generator—a machine that functions as a vital part of your at-sea water treatment system.

If you work on or maintain a boat, offshore rig, or offshore oil or gas production platform, you know that one of your most important consumables is fresh, potable water. The saltwater with which you’re surrounded is filled with not only salt but also refuse, seaweed, silt, and other contaminants that can make it unsafe for regular use. 

Through the process of reverse osmosis, you can take any kind of water; filter, neutralize, and disinfect it; and get fresh water as an output. A device known as a watermaker harnesses the power of reverse osmosis and uses specialized protocols to make sure that the processed water is safe for drinking—and safe for long-term storage. 

A watermaker depends, in part, on a fine-tuned high-pressure pump to drive the integral reverse osmosis process. It’s important to know how your watermaker works, what the unsafe conditions for your high-pressure pump may be, and how to maintain your system to ensure a constant source of safe water.

How to Properly Maintain Your Desalination Unit

Water, water, everywhere: As the saying goes, when you’re out at sea, it can seem like your most precious commodity is just out of reach. Making sure that you have safe, potable water for your crew is vital for a successful venture, and chief among the tools you’ll need to accomplish this is a desalination unit. 

When you’re prioritizing maintenance for your vessel or offshore production platform, it’s important to know the reasoning behind your investment. Taking the time to understand what each machine on your vessel does can help clarify why maintenance and replacement parts are crucial for your safety and quality of life while at sea.

One such machine is your vessel’s sodium hypochlorite generator. From time to time, you’ll need to invest time and money into ensuring that this generator is working the way it should. Why is this important? What does your sodium hypochlorite generator do, anyway? What will happen if you don’t care for it as you should? 

We’ll discuss these questions and more in this blog:

When you’re looking for sanitation units for your boat, you’re likely looking to achieve some pretty basic goals. You want the sewage treatment process to be streamlined and contained, you don’t want to have to deal with the sewage directly or notice any unpleasant aromas, and you want all discharge to be compliant with U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) or International Maritime Organization (IMO) standards so you don’t face any fines.