Shipyard Vid: Install of Our New Composting Head

Hello crew! This is the final video from our time in the shipyard with Perdido Sailor in 2018. I know many of you have been very curious about our swap from a manual to a composting head, and I wanted to share with you the install process in detail. The ventilation system turned out to be the trickiest part (mainly because we wanted to utilize old, obsolete systems to hide as much of it as we could for aesthetic results). But, other than removing the … smelly items, this was really a rather simple install, one I was able to handle primarily on my own while Phillip was tackling the rudder post reinforcement and other projects, and one we are very pleased with.

Phillip and I have been weekend cruising for about six months now using the composting head and have found it to be a wonderful new addition to our life goal of keeping things simple. There is no more pumping after each flush, no more pumping-out at the dock, no more head smell in our boat, no more sloshing (could bust a seam any day) turd tank, and we’ve opened up plenty of new, now much more freshly-smelling lockers for storage. Oh, and we closed a thru-hull (the one for the macerator). So, we are down to only four thru-hulls now on our boat and thrilled about it. I told you our motto: K.I.S.S. If any of you are considering changing to a composting head, Phillip and I highly recommend it. I can tell you this: We haven’t heard of a single sailor going from composting BACK TO a manual head. That should tell you something.

As mentioned in the video, here is the link to the detailed blog post I put together laying out all of our research and reasons for swapping to a composting head: https://havewindwilltravel.com/2018/09/15/shipyard-project-no-6-swap-to-a-composting-airhead/. This includes the pros and cons we found and the rationale behind our decision to go with an Airhead, versus the Nature’s Head or C-head, and links to helpful articles, like this one from RV Lifestyle, that helped to educate us and inform our decision. So, feel free to peruse that helpful source before you watch the install if you would like to know more about our decision.

Then dive into this fun shipyard project video! The composting head has been a fantastic live-aboard lifestyle upgrade for us.

If you have any questions about our composting head, feel free to shoot them our way via HaveWindWillTravel. Enjoy the show!

As promised in the video: a link to the Squatty Potty unicorn commercial (hilarious). You’re welcome ; ).

And, a link to buy the Coco Bliss coco pith bricks for the composting head (which is roughly $4/brick and each brick lasts 3-4 weeks, we’re told, for live aboard cruisers).

Also, for my “strictly blog” followers, you actually get TWO videos this week. I realized when I shared our “Six Years Sailing at HaveWindWillTravel” recently on YouTube and Facebook that I forgot to share it as a blog post to my email-only followers. So, HERE YOU GO! A very fun six-year video re-cap in the new “Our Journey” tab on the website for you as well below. Enjoy both shows!