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The origins of Rainman established their reputation as the “Portable Watermaker” in the blue case. Although many customers prefer to install their Rainman, many benefits exist for keeping your system portable.

• You don’t need to install the system. Ten minutes after receiving the system, you can be making fresh drinking water.
• If you are a cruiser and a racer, you can easily offload about 2/3 of a crew member in weight by putting the watermaker ashore.
• No extra holes in your hull.
• If you are space constrained, you can remove the system for more people and gear on shorter trips.
• If maintenance is required, you bring the system to a technician rather than a technician to your boat.
• When you upgrade your boat, the system goes with you. Installing a system in your boat will not add much value to your boat.
• You can loan it to a friend.
• Reduced initial cost due to no expensive installation process.
• You can fill up your neighbour’s tanks with our product water extension hose.
• Moving the system around is easy if you have an RV, live near water, or have another boat.
• You can easily resell the system if you are no longer getting use out.
• Minimise risk to your vessel during storm season by leaving your Rainman ashore.
• After a few uses, it will take about two minutes to set up your watermaker for use. 

You have maximum flexibility in power sources if you wish to keep your system portable. Any of the three platforms can be used as portable. In order of popularity, these include:

AC powered watermaker
The primary design principle in the AC Rainman is that it must start and run using a Honda 2kVA portable generator. The ubiquity of this generator has helped make it the most popular system in the range. It can also run on a good quality 2kVA inverter. Higher capacity generators and inverters are commonly used as well.

Petrol (gasoline) powered watermaker
An update of the original Rainman, this system can run without any external electricity source. Just add fuel and salt water. It was designed with a Honda GXH50 motor and a simple belt drive system.

12-volt DC powered watermaker
This system was designed with lower power and lower flow rates. Simplicity and low maintenance is retained by utilising a simple triplex plunger pump. Due to the lower productivity and requirement for a shorter power cord, this system is more commonly installed than kept portable.

Rainman built their reputation on inventing and commercialising portable watermakers. However, over the years many of their customers prefer to permanently or semi-permanently install their systems into their boat. There are many reasons for this:

• You don’t have to pull the system out on deck every time you use it.
• No hoses thrown over the side of your boat while system is in use.
• Less concern of hoses getting kicked out of place while in use.
• Easier to use while underway.

If you decide to install a Rainman watermaker, you can choose from any of the electric systems. We do not recommend you install our petrol (gasoline) powered watermaker. Options include:

AC powered
The primary design principle in the AC Rainman is that it must start and run using a Honda 2kVA portable generator. The ubiquity of this generator has helped make it the most popular system in the range. It can also run on a good quality 2kVA inverter. Higher capacity generators and inverters are commonly used as well.

12VDC powered
This system was designed with lower power and lower flow rates. Simplicity and low maintenance is retained by utilising a simple triplex plunger pump.

The system can be purchased either as the traditional blue case version or in the Naked configuration. Both can be easily installed in your boat. The pricing, performance and power consumption are identical between the two options, so your specific requirements control which is best suited for your application. The main differences between the two systems are:

1. Naked comes without the blue cases, but includes most of the valves and plumbing components for your installation.
2. The valve / gauge control on the reverse osmosis (RO) unit is at the end of a high pressure hose, so the membranes can be installed “out of sight and out of mind”.