I had everything I needed on my first live-aboard boat. She was a 21-foot Southern Coast day sailer, I named Aphrodite, with enough room down below for two sleeping bags and a couple of backpacks. A wooden box served quadruple duty as a step, a seat, a table and a container for galley supplies. A bucket served for a head. When I moved aboard, I thought I had gone to heaven.
The fresh water came onboard in gallon containers and was poured into a cup or saucepan straight from there. I washed the dishes in sea water and showered on deck using my solar shower bag. No need for tanks, pumps, taps and the associated hoses, valves, batteries, heaters, sinks or thru hulls.
Also, no worries about failure in any of the components or need for maintenance.
Eidos, my 32-foot East Orient, was built to cross oceans and so gallon containers are not practical unless as a back up. Instead, she has two 30-gallon stainless steel tanks under the salon settees connected together with hoses leading to the sinks in the galley and the head. When I bought her, she had a rusty hot water heater in the bilge behind the engine and a temperamental fresh water pump with an accumulator.
The heater was the first item to get thrown off the boat while she was still hauled out for bottom paint. The pressure pump and accumulator went next (this freed up a nice locker for storage), the unnecessary hoses too and I still have to get rid of the corroded taps. Instead, I now have two foot pumps and no worries if the batteries die in the middle of the ocean.
The only thing I need to watch for now is when I visit friends or family on land, I make these foot pumping motions next to the sink, both hands under the tap with no water coming out, which worries my hosts.
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