Letting Go of the Holding Tank

My almost worst-case scenario came to pass. “Oh, and I need to show you something,” the repair tech said. Up the stairs we climbed to access the cockpit, what with the boat being on the hard and all. She pointed at the holding tank which had been disconnected from all hoses and tipped up so that the fittings could be replaced. “That’s a crack.”

Crap. A crack. I had spent time thinking about what could go better than I expected, what could go worse, and what I realistically expected. A cracked holding tank definitely falls into the what-could-go-worse pile. In fact, I’m certain the tank has already been binned by the contractor.

As previously mentioned, I do lean toward a composting toilet. However, I also lean even more strongly toward actually getting to sail the boat this summer! What with having to repair the keel, replace the toilet, replace the holding tank vent, replace a leaking coolant line, and the continuing saga of the topping lift, we haven’t left the marina. Sad.

So as I pondered what to do, I came up with three factors to consider: cost, availability of a boat with a working marine head, and longevity. If the cost would be exceptionally high, that pushes me more toward shifting that cost into buying a composting toilet. And so I checked on that and my preferred model is a 12-week wait. That runs smack into the second factor: getting out on the water.

I then considered the next option which was a portable toilet that could see us through an overnight or two, but with some inconvenience attached. We know about these toilets because we had one on our West Wight Potter 19. It saw us through several days at a time…sometimes. But is it a long-lasting solution that would also work for longer voyages? Perhaps, but probably not as well as replacing the holding tank.

While the contractor looked at tanks that would fit, I reached out to the International Nonsuch Association with questions about their tank replacement program. Lo and behold, I learned that shipping on their reasonably priced holding tank was included in the purchase price. And the fittings will be in the same place, so my existing toilet installation should be plug-and-play. Winner!

I’ve ordered a new tank. Once it arrives, we can install it with the boat in the water. (Not having to lift it out of the water again is another win.) My guess is the tank is about four weeks out from delivery and so I went ahead and did what I had already rejected as a long-term solution and bought a Thetford Porta Potti^®. That will give us enough flexibility to get through the next month or so. Translation: we can get on the water in June, and come July, we can pull the portable toilet from service when we install the new holding tank.

After that, what shall we do with the portable toilet? We’ll hold it in reserve. For long voyages, I can stuff it in a quarter berth as a backup if our holding tank fills up while we are not near a pump-out facility. The rest of the time, we’ll keep it off the boat, in storage, as a just-in-case kind of thing. (That Justin Case fellow gets around, doesn’t he!)