Having quick and easy access to drinking water is one of the factors that the skipper appreciates the most when embarking on a project like an international regatta.
International regattas are one of the nautical activities that gathers the most vessels in the sea. They are celebrated for their complexity, the effort they entail, and both the risk and adventure they harbour. But they’re also celebrated because of their main players, the sailboats, the skippers that man them and the teams behind them.
Drinking water in the middle of the sea
Before embarking on an international regatta like the Vendée Globe, a host of items must be calculated, purchased and prepared. One of the most important ones is associated with food and drink, both solid and liquid sustenance. In a competition with features like the Vendée Globe, weight is something that must be reduced to the minimum. The food will almost always be freeze-dried because of weight, space, ease and expiration issues, and there will never be too much of it. Regarding liquids, the best bet is to forget about bottled drinking water. So what’s the best option for carrying fresh water onboard? Professionals know the answer: in an international regatta, the water comes from a watermaker like the Eco-Sistems Splash 25.
Dídac Costa, fresh water and his experience with a watermaker
This model is precisely the one chosen by Dídac Costa, the leading Catalan skipper to sail around the world competing in the Vendée Globe. The Splash-25 is a maritime watermaker capable of generating 25 litres of drinking water per hour. It is a lightweight, sturdy model that is easy to use and maintain. According to Dídac Costa, “it is in no way a complex machine; all it needs to work is energy”. Costa has complete trust in this watermaker, which he had with him on the 108 days of the most important adventure of his life. “It was what I drank from. And I had to fully trust it before choosing it because if it had broken I would have been left without drinking water onboard, and that means giving up,” he says.
