One Head or Two for 45' or less Boats?

So I'm looking at the website for the new Nordhavn 41. It has one head. My Cherubini 45 has one full and one half. While there are many 2 and 3 stateroom boats that sleep a dozen including 2 on the dining table, that need 2 full heads, how many do you need for a 1 or 2 staterooms forward boat? More may be better, but I keep viewing my master stateroom half head, and wonder how awesome a closet I could make out of it. It's not going to happen, but I'm curious what you think about more storage or more head.

Ted

I have 40' sport fish sedan with a single head for the two forward berths. I wouldn't want another one. In addition to loss of usable space, it's an additional maintenance item (and a gross one at that).

I think layout has as much to do with it as anything else. Some of the layouts with the master at stern and a v-berth seem to make more sense having two heads.

Having just had a toilet **** itself last week I was grateful for the second one being available while I waited a week for parts to arrive.
All up and running again.

Simi 60 said:

Having just had a toilet **** itself last week I was grateful for the second one being available while I waited a week for parts to arrive.
All up and running again.

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As with a single engine boat, I would expect to have every part that can break or wear out, in the spares department on the boat. For most heads, that would be about 2 shoeboxes worth of space.

Ted

Master and second stateroom on SCOUT. One head. Already a TON of storage, but I wouldn't give up any of it for another head.

I have the two shoeboxes worth of spares.....

We have 2 staterooms and 2 heads. We want both of each. There are times even with just the 2 of us that we use both heads. 95% of the time we only use the aft head if it is just us, but there are times when things get urgent that we do use both heads. When we have guests both heads get used.

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O C Diver said:

As with a single engine boat, I would expect to have every part that can break or wear out, in the spares department on the boat. For most heads, that would be about 2 shoeboxes worth of space.

Ted

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Slowly getting there,
Plenty of spares for engine, genset , electronics
I have a second toilet as a spare but, now I also have a box full of bits x 2 for them as well.

1.5. I simply think having the second sink and toilet is worth it. One shower is livable.

Our last boat was one stateroom, convertible dinette, one bath. One of the reasons for upgrading was to have real guest space. Now we have two staterooms with private ensuite baths. Do we have guests often enough to need it? Not at all.....but when we do.....it’s really nice to not share the head. Hindsight being 20/20, we should have made one of the heads composting when we replaced them both two years ago.....but we didn’t know then what we know now.

Bottom line.....to me...two is better than one.

Comodave said:

We have 2 staterooms and 2 heads. We want both of each. There are times even with just the 2 of us that we use both heads. 95% of the time we only use the aft head if it is just us, but there are times when things get urgent that we do use both heads. When we have guests both heads get used.

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Certainly in a fore and aft cabin boat, one head is probably not realistic if you have to go during the night.

Ted

Two staterooms and two heads . . . plus acres of storage. (Thank you, Art.). Would not change this.

When we replaced the heads, we plumbed the master stateroom to a Purasan—not to a holding tank. This saved a long hose run to the forward holding tank, greatly reduced pump outs and is legal in most of the areas we boat in. When we’re in non-discharge areas, the forward head is still plumbed to the holding tank.

Liveaboard like 2 heads, when one is broke and you gotta go.


Heads candy have. A lot if storage space and still be a functional head.


Everything on smaller boats is a trade-off. .. I am keeping a second head which is neither a lot more work or gross.

Two. We have been through multiple head failures and would not have less. One new electric and one nearly new manual. No working head is a cruise stopper. Granted we could all use a bucket as last resort but who want to depend on that plan.

Blessed art thou with an RV head in thy boat - one is all you need!

It is interesting to compare to earth dwellings. It would be difficult to imagine a 500 sf apartment with two bathrooms but many 40'-50' boats have two heads. People are shy about using the head, personally I feel that adults should recognize that everybody poops. Having a well maintained head with adequate spares to keep thing running is my preference but I can understand others wanting some privacy and reserve the reserve capacity of a second head. Every boat is a compromise and personal values are important to consider.

I think this one comes down to personal preference, and boat useage. If you are a solo cruiser 90% of the time, with occaisional significant other accompanyment, a single is probably fine. If you are usually a couple and have other couples along on a regular basis, two would be better. If you are 5 twenty something, beer drinking guys doing day trips.....a bucket might be sufficient ( just in case both scuppers are occupied )

Two staterooms (plus dinette that makes a dbl) and two heads with seperate showers- and they all are getting used Has the orig Galley Maid toilets with huge pumps and tons of lines, and uses lots of water - all coming out soon to be replaced with Raritan Marine Elegance per advice of the Head Mistress.

Our last 40’ sailboat had two cabins, two wheels, and two heads. We did have one occasion when one head failed and we were glad we had the second. However, when I replaced the failed head with one with a decent design, we never worried about failure again.

My current 43’ trawler has two cabins, two helm stations, and only 1 head. I don’t miss the second head. I’m much happier having the extra space than having precious boat real estate taken up with a head. Granted, the most we have had on the boat for an extended period was 5 adults.

My “if I only could afford a new boat it would be....” boat is the North Pacific 45. This is offered with several layouts. At least one has a separate head in the master cabin. I would NOT select this layout. It sacrifices storage just for another place to relieve yourself and brush your teeth. Even though I’m old and have a prostate the size of a grapefruit, I don’t spend enough time in the head to make it worth the space.

Our last boat and our present boat (both 42') both had two heads. Having a spare is really nice when something goes wrong. I wouldn't want to cruise with just one again unless I was soloing it. It's possible for sure, but it sure takes a lot of stress out to have two, especially with guests aboard.

The second head on our boat is wonderful marital stress reliever- even with infrequent synchronous use of both. If you have a second person, i.e. spouse, on the boat, living aboard for even a few days at a time, I would go with their preference.

Having the shower in a separate room from the head/sink would help to relieve pressure also

Comodave said:

We have 2 staterooms and 2 heads. We want both of each. There are times even with just the 2 of us that we use both heads....... When we have guests both heads get used.

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Ditto!

Gdavid said:

It is interesting to compare to earth dwellings. It would be difficult to imagine a 500 sf apartment with two bathrooms but many 40'-50' boats have two heads. People are shy about using the head, personally I feel that adults should recognize that everybody poops. Having a well maintained head with adequate spares to keep thing running is my preference but I can understand others wanting some privacy and reserve the reserve capacity of a second head. Every boat is a compromise and personal values are important to consider.

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One of the most common emergency calls for one bedroom apartments and toilets on land are certainly less challenging than those on boats.

Interestingly, we own some 1 BR condos used by employees and the one design flaw I see in them is lack of a half bath, a day head so to speak. No emergency backup and guests using the owner's bath all the time.

So maybe I'd suggest the boats are right.

During the build phase, I thought about having the smaller aft day head set up for storage space instead. That thought last about 5 seconds after recalling the king of all toilet clogs when 3 young kids didn’t listen to my lecture about proper toilet use and killed the sole toilet on a previous boat on a holiday weekend. Two is a good thing for redundancy.

We have 2 heads and both have stall showers. Wife has claimed the bigger one for her and I have the smaller one. When we are going out for the evening and she is doing whatever women do to get ready I’m sure glad I have my own head and shower. When guests are aboard we don’t have to share. She wants to convert my shower to a closet and that’s ok with me as we do have 2 showers.

Simi 60 said:

Having just had a toilet **** itself last week I was grateful for the second one being available while I waited a week for parts to arrive.
All up and running again.

Click to expand...

Had this same problem about 3 years ago. The 2nd head saved the trip till I swapped out the old Par for a new Raritan, no parts available to repair.

Nicest I have seen was a Hood that had a standard head / shower below and a toilet head mounted fwd in the cockpit for folks to use without going below.

One of the interesting takeaways from the responses is the same sort of response one sees in "single verses twin engine threads", what happens if it breaks. Wonder if, just like twin engine boats, owners with twin heads are more prone to fix what breaks as opposed to doing preventative maintenance?

Ted

O C Diver said:

One of the interesting takeaways from the responses is the same sort of response one sees in "single verses twin engine threads", what happens if it breaks. Wonder if, just like twin engine boats, owners with twin heads are more prone to fix what breaks as opposed to doing preventative maintenance?

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Good observation. Like any part of a boat we need reliability, redundancy or at least the ability to fix almost anything that could break. Some marine heads are certainly more reliable than others. Some need electricity to work. I like RV heads (if you can fit one) because they are about as complicated as a wood board with a hole in it.

Twelve years full time with 1 head (Vacuflush). The longest the head has been down is two hours. It’s been clogged seriously twice, both by guests. My bad for not rationing the t-paper. We also only have one engine.