Black and Freshwater Tank Solution on a Small Boat

We Recently Downsized from a Ranger Tugs R29S to a Ranger Tugs R25OB — 

Above-Left:  Interior of the hull, behind the refrigerator. Here you’ll see I installed the fitting to the hull that houses the 12V fan, to exhaust the Airhead solids tank.
Above-Right:  The grey hose is the vent hose. It runs from the solids tank through the hull interior to the vent exhaust. 

Lisa and I plan on keeping our new boat for a long time, not our typical four to five-year history. We still want to trailer Kismet to distant cruising grounds and inland lakes. We also want to be home with our boat, in the Great Lakes, most summers, and down to Florida with winter getaways. Trailering the new Kismet will be easier as we age because it is shorter, narrower, and lighter than our prior two Ranger Tugs. However, we needed a black and fresh water tank solution.

The new R25OB has many advantages. It’s faster, easier to maintain, and less expensive to insure, store and dock.
Owning a smaller boat comes with some challenges though, as it relates to black water capacity (14 gallons capacity. We’d be looking for a pump-out every five days, not a good use of our time) and freshwater capacity (38 gallons capacity). We wanted to address those two issues immediately.

We enjoy spending copious amounts of time in remote waters communing with nature. That means, we not only need food and various provisions to tide us over for a week or two at a time, sometimes without ever getting off the boat, we dinghy to shore for a walk in the woods or through a small town. But, we need to have more control over the waste situation and we need to store enough water to keep us hydrated and clean during long trips anchored out between marina visits. I love a challenge!

I did extensive research while we waited for our boat to be built, mostly on the black water solutions available.
In this scenario, taking care of the black water limitations will lead to help solve the water limitations on the new boat. So, we will increase our black water capacity by exchanging the factory-installed toilet for a composting Airhead Toilet. This will solve our freshwater storage because we plan to put into service the UNUSED, black water tank for more freshwater capacity. This, of course, would not be possible with an older boat, where the tank had already stored black water. Besides enlarging our fresh water tank and extending our need to visit marinas, we were looking forward to a more odorless head situation.

After a lot of research, online, and consulting with other cruisers with experience, we bought the Airhead composting toilet. My research, with friends, who have composting toilets, told us one can go up to three to four weeks, versus the five-day limit, on the solids. The liquid, which flows into its own container which attaches to the toilet, needs to be emptied more often. The factory does not install compostable toilets, so I knew I would install them myself. I had most of the process figured out and materials bought before we took possession of our new tug.

Right after we received our Ranger Tugs Factory Delivery Experience, a two-day orientation of boat systems and operations, I began our first renovation, to make our new boat work how we needed it to work for us; it was a four-step process.

  
Above-Left:  The grey hose is attached to the solids tank, in the rear. Notice the crank handle, used to stir up the solids tank to foster the composting

Above-Right:  This is the completed installation of the Airhead Composting Toilet. I mounted the unit to a piece of starboard to give the overhang support. The solids tank is towards the back, while the liquid tank is in the front.

First, I removed the factory toilet and then mounted the Airhead on the same base as the other. Next, I connected the vent hose to the toilet tank and ran it inside the wall cavity (had to take the refrigerator out for access). Then, I cut a hole in the hull’s side (that was fun!) and mounted it to the interior of the hull. I mounted a clamshell at a 45-degree angle on the exterior to keep water out and exhaust for the vent line. The last step was to electrify the 12V fan that will keep air flowing from the airhead tank.

Above:  Here is the clam-shell cover. It will protect the exhaust fan from moisture. I measured for the hole about six times to assure my one-shot at cutting a hole in our new boat would be done right. Only get one chance at this!

The entire process, which sounds easy, but because of working in such tight spaces, and having to move the refrigerator in and out a few times, took parts of three days to complete. In the end, we’ve increased our freshwater capacity, won’t be time-constrained in finding a pump-out station every five days, plus we’ll have an odorless result.

Not a suitable solution for everybody, but it helps us stay out on the water for longer periods of time without having to go into a marina or fuel dock for a pump out. That’s a big plus for us!

For more information on composting toilets, go to Air Head Composting Toilet

We later converted the black tank to a freshwater tank, read about the process here…

Fresh Water Tank Capacity Dilemma & Solution