Sanlorenzo Timeless, the after-sale service of the Italian yacht builder, has chosen HP Watermakers desalinators for one of its latest projects.
Recently, the Sanlorenzo Timeless team collaborated with HP Watermakers for the installation of their desalination systems on a Sanlorenzo SX88. Thanks to their complete automation guaranteed by the RP Tronic system, the HP Watermakers desalinators offer a “considerable advantage over manual desalinators, eliminating the need for continuous pressure adjustments in the engine room to adapt to fluctuations in salinity and water temperature,” the manufacturer says. But, above all, they perform an effective rinse at the end of the cycle with the valve fully open, thus making it unnecessary to chemically wash the membranes to remove accumulated salt.
“The term ‘automatic’ is often used inappropriately and desalination plants are no exception,” Gianni Zucco, co-founder of HP Watermakers, says. “When we say automatic, we mean a real ‘appliance’ that can be controlled with a few simple commands, rather like an air conditioning system. To do this, we developed the RP Tronic system, which HP Watermakers patented over 20 years ago; it is the watershed between manual and automatic desalination systems, because it permits automated regulation of the pressure exerted by seawater on the osmotic membranes.”
The refitting of the Sanlorenzo SX88
In practice, the high-pressure pump sends seawater to the membranes and the RP Tronic valve, which is downstream, ensures that the pressure is kept constant at 60 bar. Conversely, especially during navigation, a unit with a manual valve would require constant monitoring, which translates into someone having to go down into the engine room every time the unit needs checking. If salinity increases, production will inevitably decrease, and pressure will rise until it becomes too high and the system shuts down. An increase in temperature would cause the opposite phenomenon, i.e. the pressure would drop, as would the system’s productivity.
Something similar applies to the automatic washing of membranes, standard on HP Watermakers desalinators: being positioned at the end of the hydraulic circuit, RP Tronic opens automatically with each shutdown, allowing all the salt water to drain away from the system but above all from the membranes. Furthermore, thanks to the AMCS (Automatic Membrane Conservation System), during each shutdown and washing cycle a dispenser injects a few drops of sodium metabisulphite onto the membranes. This inert and harmless compound does not damage the membranes, but is essential to prevent bacterial proliferation and therefore the creation of mucilage, which is always possible in the absence of chlorine. With all these systems, the service life of the membranes can extend to up to 10 years, HP Watermakers says.
Collaboration starts in 2023
“Another important aspect of all our models is their complete compatibility with on-board systems,” says Gianni Zucco. “Thanks to the possibility of taking advantage of our Part-Net interface, fully compatible with the on-board electronic systems of brands such as Raymarine, Garmin, Furuno, Simrad, B&G and Lowrance, the user can control the entire desalination system, including pressure and all other operating parameters, from the dashboard plotter, or even from a smartphone when an internet connection is available, without any manual intervention.”
The collaboration between HP Watermakers and the Sanlorenzo shipyard began in 2023 with the installation of HP desalinators on board the new Sanlorenzo SP92 yacht and has further expanded this year to the collaboration with Sanlorenzo Timeless.
