Wag-Bag Stowage Underway

A construction guide (of do’s and don’ts)

Article by Jim Phelps

If you’re using a wag-bag approach to human waste management (to just launch right into this delicate topic), there’s the storage issue: what to do with those bags until the next port.

Here’s a system I first encountered for self-support whitewater kayaking, where the need is for slender, odor-impenetrable safekeeping: a sealable PVC tube.

The black kayak tube is okay for one person, but for a several-day trip with crew, I needed a larger capacity system—and white pipe won’t heat up so much in the sun (the olfactory experience upon opening the tube later is the issue; during the voyage even the black pipe is odor-free).

After constructing the white tube shown, a better way emerged in hindsight. But just in case you’d like to know why I built a model of a Saturn rocket, I’ll explain how it came about (hopefully for your amusement).

The better way: apparently Wilco sells PVC pipe by the foot, at least some versions thereof. So don’t buy 10 feet as I did. Apparently Wilco sells a thin-walled sewer pipe, as opposed to the thick-walled pressure pipe I bought. The thin version should work fine and would be lighter. And Wilco sells end-caps for the lighter pipe that are flat, not round-ended like the ones I came home with. With a flat end, you can stand the tube vertically. (Mine stands alongside the Duckworks bucket-with-a-seat-and-lid, under the tiller of my Montgomery 15. My wife says this ruins the aesthetics of a beautiful boat, having the potty system sitting out there in plain view. For your further consideration…)

Coming home with end-caps that are rounded led to an attempt to make a base. Simple, I thought:  just cut off a ring from the unused pipe and glue it onto the end-cap. Well, if you don’t have a good worktable, it’s a challenge to make a perfect cut such that both sides of the resulting ring are flat. Some filing with a rasp thus followed; not too tough with this material, fortunately.

However, the contact area between the ring and the rounded end-cap proved to be too small to hold an epoxy glue-job (exacerbated by my imperfect ring). So an intermediate surface that would bond well to the end-cap and to the ring was introduced—a strip of closed-cell foam from some pads that have been hanging around in the garage ever since my whitewater kayaking days, fortunately well-preserved.

The foam ring was glued to the end-cap and the PVC ring glued to the foam. Thus the multi-stage rocket. Silly, but it does stand vertically!

If you’re going to sully the aesthetics of your cockpit with this thing, measure the vertical height that will fit in there without compromising the swing of your tiller. Hopefully you can buy just the amount of pipe you need. Mine is 16 inches tall, inside diameter 4 inches.   

Oh, and those end-caps? You can glue one on, of course. The other end stays removable. The fit on my rounded cap is tight enough that it would stay in place even if somehow the tube managed to go overboard. So I did not replicate the kayak version, which has a screw-on removable end-cap in case of a wet exit in a Class 5 rapid (fortunately never thus tested).

We will test the capacity of the Saturn in the upcoming Salish 100, as I’ll have a friend aboard for the first three days. Per experience with my kayak tube, this larger capacity should be sufficient. Obviously there are multiple variables involved. shall we say. •SCA•