Fresh Water UV Purification for Yachts & Deep Sea Fishing Boats

Posted by Dave on Feb 05, 2020 for ProLampSales

Whether your are on 23 ft cabin cruiser or a 100 ft yacht, chances are you store fresh water.

Marine fresh water tanks are designed for storing potable water. The larger tanks with capacity to accommodate several days away from port are found in yachts, large sailboats and deep sea fishing boats.

The water that ends up in these tanks can come from many different sources - when options are limited sometimes the water can be less than tasty and in some cases downright risky to your health.

Add the fact that the tanks themselves, often difficult to clean, can become a breeding ground for bacteria and other organisms not conducive to healthy living at sea.

For all of these reasons, water filtration and water purification are essential elements in a good potable water system for larger sea going boats - or any boat that is away from port for an extended time and relies on fresh, onboard water.

How to Purify Water

While water can be purified by boiling or with chemicals such as chlorine, the focus of this post is on water purification equipment that uses ultraviolet light to sanitize the water.

Germicidal ultraviolet light is a powerful sanitizer that does the job without adding any chemicals to the water. At proper dosages, germicidal ultraviolet light can inactivate 99% of specific microorganisms shown on the table below.

Organism	Alt. Name	Type	Disease	Dose*
Bacillus subtillis spores	B.subtilis	Bacteria	n/a	22,000
Bacteriophage	Phage	Virus	n/a	6,600
Coxsackie virus	n/a	Virus	Intestinal infection	6,300
Shigella spores	n/a	Bacteria	Bacterial dysentery	4,200
Escherichia coli	E.coli	Bacteria	Food poisoning	6,600
Fecal coliform	n/a	Bacteria	Intestinal infection	6,600
Hepatitis A virus	Infectious Hepatitis Virus	Virus	Hepatitis of the liver	8,000
Influenza Virus	Flu Virus	Virus	Influenza	6,600
Legionella pneumophila	n/a	Bacteria	Legionnaires’ disease	12,300
Salmonella typhi	n/a	Bacteria	Typhoid Fever	7,000
Staphylococcus aureus	Staph	Bacteria	Food poisoning, Toxic Shock Syndrome, etc	6,600
Streptococcuss spores	Strep	Bacteria	Strep throat	3,800

* Nominal Ultraviolet dosage (μWSec/cm2) necessary to inactivate better than 99% of specific microorganism.

UV Water Purification Equipment

The equipment that utilizes the specialized germicidal lamps comes in various sizes and capacities measured in gallons per minute of sanitized water.

Here is one example:

The Minipure series from Atlantic Ultraviolet's line water purifier equipment.

This unit comes in 1, 1.5, 3, 6 and 9 gallon per minute versions. Designed to be installed horizontally the sizes range from roughly 12" x 3" for the smallest unit to 30" x 6" for the largest.

This size range and capacity is ideal for yachts and other boats carrying storage tanks to accommodate a few people.

For boats requiring higher capacity, larger units are available including Mighty Pure and Sanitron lines.