Questions for the '59 Wanderer

T

traveler805

New Member
Newbie here. We rented the '59 Wanderer out of Wahweap in August. I attempted to call the boat rental number, but haven't been able to talk to anyone.

DEPARTURE TIME
We were given a 10am reservation. If you get there earlier, do they let you leave earlier? I am aware of pre-boarding, but it wasn't going to work for us due to travel constraints. I am somewhat concerned about getting uplake and anchored before an afternoon storm or high winds.

FUN TANK
One place it says it has a 100-gallon fun tank, but on the specs it says two 187-gallon tanks. Then in the operating manual it says 2 200-gallon tanks: one for toys and the generator and the other for engines. Which is accurate?

GENERATOR
Approximately how many hours does it take to recharge the batteries daily? Specs say it uses 3-4 gallons per hour for generator use. Is that accurate? Are the gauges accurate? I see people saying they ran their generators for 10 hours a day for a week. How is that possible if it really consumes 3-4 gallons per hour? Are you spending more on generator gas than engine gas? I just want to make sure our fuel consumption leaves plenty of fuel to get back. (6-night trip) Also, I've seen some people suggest bringing your own ice maker. Don't you have to run the generator to run any appliances?

WATER
The Wanderer specs show a UV light + 3-filter RO system that pulls from the lake. Based on research, people say they would still bring their own drinking water. Basically, "the tech is good, but the maintenance is questionable." Is that true? I've been unable to find any reports of people getting sick. Have people actually gotten sick from this system?

DISHES
Since the generator is required for the water heater and dishwasher, does everyone wash their dishes, camping style? (Either heat water on a propane camping stove or use bleach to disinfect?)

Thank you!
 
Not sure how far uplake you plan to travel?

From Wahweap rental docks to Padre Bay, plan on 4-5 hrs. The twin 115 Mercs on this boat will consume just under 6 gph combined if you keep RPMS at or below 3,000. So plan on using about 60 gallons fuel just to move the boat that far and back. If you want to reach Last Chance, add another 3-4 hrs round trip.

In August you will be running the AC (the generator) quite a bit just to keep cool. You may even need to run the AC overnight if sleeping in the staterooms, they can get pretty stuffy without AC in August. With that said, the batteries will stay charged simply from all the generator usage. Fuel consumption for the trip will be higher from generator use than from running the 2 outboards for 1/2 day up and another 1/2 day back.

As for 10 am reservation, bear in mind you’ll be behind the pre-boards in priority. That being said, get there early. Find a porter and tip generously to help you get boarding going early as possible. If you’re there before 10, it’s pretty likely you’ll be able to load early with a little help from the porters.

Don’t wait till 10 or you won’t get started up lake till well after noon. What drives your departure time is more about getting the boat loaded, and finding a dockhand to sign off on your pre-trip inspection/instruction check than it is about time of day. Arrive early and find an ally dock person to advocate for your group.
 
Make a list of questions to ask when you get there. Certainly, the amount of fuel in each tank is one of them. Pop them open to make sure they’re full, if that’s possible on that boat.

Make sure the black tank is empty. Double/triple
Check. It sucks to be annoying but better than the alternative.

We ran the generator 24/7 on our July trip last year. It was more than the boat fuel.

Definitely 100% get there early, check in, sign paperwork, etc and figure out what boat you’re on. Start moving things to your boat as soon as you find out what boat you’re on, for sure.

Heck, start getting things to the dock before you know what boat you’re on if you need to. Have the captain and co-captain of your trip going over everything while others pack things in.
 
Rivergoer said:
Not sure how far uplake you plan to travel?

From Wahweap rental docks to Padre Bay, plan on 4-5 hrs. The twin 115 Mercs on this boat will consume just under 6 gph combined if you keep RPMS at or below 3,000. So plan on using about 60 gallons fuel just to move the boat that far and back. If you want to reach Last Chance, add another 3-4 hrs round trip.

In August you will be running the AC (the generator) quite a bit just to keep cool. You may even need to run the AC overnight if sleeping in the staterooms, they can get pretty stuffy without AC in August. With that said, the batteries will stay charged simply from all the generator usage. Fuel consumption for the trip will be higher from generator use than from running the 2 outboards for 1/2 day up and another 1/2 day back.

As for 10 am reservation, bear in mind you’ll be behind the pre-boards in priority. That being said, get there early. Find a porter and tip generously to help you get boarding going early as possible. If you’re there before 10, it’s pretty likely you’ll be able to load early with a little help from the porters.

Don’t wait till 10 or you won’t get started up lake till well after noon. What drives your departure time is more about getting the boat loaded, and finding a dockhand to sign off on your pre-trip inspection/instruction check than it is about time of day. Arrive early and find an ally dock person to advocate for your group.
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Thank you! Lots of great info. We're planning on following the rental requirements of staying on this side of the 25-mile buoy--so Padre Bay.
 
For 20 kw, assume 2 gal/hr

And if you can run it for 3 separate times during the day, like 4-6 hrs a “run”, it will charge up batteries and get the inside cool.

Key is keeping shades down on sunny side of the boat. If you can find a spot where sun goes over bow to stern, it’s amazing how cooler it will be on the boat.
 
I’d suggest reading some of the reviews of Aramark, their level of service, and the condition many find their houseboats to be in.

Do not expect perfection. Realistic expectations can set the tone for a more enjoyable trip.

I can’t count how many houseboat trips I’ve been on, but it’s rare for things to go 100% as planned. Even on private houseboats or my own personal boat that is basically maintained with an open checkbook (and thats not what you are getting).

Be ready for that and don’t sweat the small stuff.

You can have a great experience even when things don’t go as planned.
 
We've always shown up when they open at 9:00am with no problems. Get checked in and they will start the process of waiting for a person to help you load. Make sure to visually see that all the fuel tanks are full. Several times we've found one of the tanks to be low and they don't have a problem with topping them off before you leave. Make sure they start the generator and switch over to air conditioning and explain the controller so you understand it. I've had directions in the manual they give you that don't match what was actually installed on the boat. Without Starlink it's hard to Google or Utube and look it up.

We always take a dish tub and bleach and sanitize our washed dishes camping style. We always take fresh drinking water too. Getting the runs is never funs. If you're water system quits for some reason you'll at least have clean water to drink and a way to sanitize dishes if forced to wash dishes in lake water. We stocked the freezer on the front deck with several blocks for the cooler and bags of drink ice. When we come back after an outing we stick the ice back in the freezer and double bag it so the water around the ice refreezes. You'll be surprised how long a block will last.
 
huntingdad said:
Make sure all the fuel tanks are topped off before you leave the dock. Our toy tank ended up being 60 gallons low. we dodged a $$ bullet on that one.
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good advice in any case, rental or no! We just had this issue on our shared houseboat. Fuel dock stopped filling 38 gallons short.
 
We've rented the wanderer the last 4 years in mid July. The 2 tanks are just under 200gallons each, like 187 or something like that, so I plan approx. 400 total. We go out to padre or Face canyon about 4+ hours cruise and run the generator 24/7 that time of year. We also put 30-40 gallons into my personal boat mid week. We always return about 50% used, so around 200 gallons used, 200 remaining. I can't say about batter recharge as we always run generator 24/7. The 2 tanks can be configured how you want if you look below and know basic plumbing. many times they have it setup to run engines on one side, generator on another and toy tank both, or some other configuration. Basically, you can turn on or off individual valves to use each target from whatever source you want. If you really get messed up, just make sure every valve is open and balance tanks by pumping from the toy pump into the low tank.

We try to do most of our cooking at the propane BBQ up top so as not to heat up the kitchen running oven, stove etc... They do work, but don't try to run everything at once, you will trip the generator.

We use the onboard unlimited water for most everything except drinking as it tastes a little different, and the girls don't like it, but I drink it just fine with no issues. So we bring 4-5 gallons for the girls drinking water. We normally use the dishwasher, but this year it made a strange noise and took forever so we stopped and just hand washed in the sink with the provided dawn soap. We didn't worry about bleach or whatever.

There is no grey tank used, it pumps back to lake. So you can shower to you're hearts delight. Disposal + toilets go to black tank and never had a problem as long as you make sure not to leave toilets running with a sticky lever.

It's a rental so we don't expect everything to be perfect, but we've been really happy/lucky the last 4 years in a row with the wanderer.

We always board the night before so we can hit it early, so I can't help much there. It's probably not as busy now, so you would probably be ok weather dependent.
 
Great advice above^^

Just one more note, for time zone purposes, despite the proximity to Arizona, Wahweap Boat Rentals are located in Utah and therefore operate on Utah time. No biggie for folks coming from UT, CO, NM, but important to note if coming in from CA, NV and AZ (in summer).
 
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