As the refurbishment of the Club de Mar-Mallorca progresses, we know new details about the improvements and innovations that the new club will bring to its members and clients.

One of them will be the wastewater network, which will be completely renovated, both on the pontoons and in the new buildings, adopting an innovative system that until now only Alcudiamar has equipped in the Balearic Islands.  It is an eco-sustainable system developed by the company Flovac, which does not require electricity for its circulation as the water is driven pneumatically, by a vacuum creation system, through a circuit of interconnected and totally hermetic pipes.

The perfect isolation of the system, as it is based on the hermeticity of the circuit, ensures that no odours are emitted to the outside and there is no possibility of spillage. According to Bruno Galindo, Flovac’s commercial director, “in the hypothetical case of a crack in a pipe, the vacuum created in the system would ensure that nothing would escape to the outside but, on the contrary, only air would enter through the point of the crack”. The company has already developed its work in large marinas around the world: the Caribbean, the United States, Vietnam, Australia…

With the new wastewater network designed by Flovac for the Club de Mar, there is no need for electricity-consuming impulse pumps; instead, the water flow is moved by a network of vacuum valves distributed throughout the circuit. Electricity is only required at a single main plant in the system. In this way, the possibility of breakdowns is drastically reduced while working with a system that saves energy and is therefore beneficial for the environment.

The system will be equipped with turrets specifically designed to service ships distributed along the pontoons that are equipped with a suction hose. In this way, it is not necessary for the boats to have a pumping system to empty their tanks. In the case of large yachts that do have an impulsion system, Flovac has developed equipment that adapts to the different flow rates of each vessel. In this case, the system is complemented with specially adapted chambers, which collect the wastewater discharged from the large yachts and then incorporate it into the pneumatic sewage circuit.

The sewage network designed by Flovac also has the option of separating hydrocarbon water, containing oil or fuel, from the rest of the wastewater by decantation, so that it can be extracted from the circuit for special treatment and not be incorporated into the municipal sewage system.

Specifically, the network designed by Flovac for the Club de Mar will have 28 vacuum valve chambers with 99 inlets for mega yachts, 40 vacuum valve turrets distributed along the pontoons that will serve the rest of the boats and 6 inlets to collect the hydrocarbon deposits distributed throughout the marina. The aim is to provide the best possible service, avoiding unpleasant odours and also with an ecologically sustainable development due to its lower electricity consumption and by eliminating the risk of spillages.

Flovac’s vacuum sewerage system is innovative worldwide and is used in both buildings and housing developments. 15 years ago, a first simple adaptation was made for the nautical installations in the port of Roses, in Girona, with two service points for boats. Since then, this eco-sustainable alternative has become more widespread and has been perfected. Six years ago, the system was installed in the Marina Port Vell in Barcelona and it will now also be installed in the future Marina Málaga, which is due to open in just over a month, and the Gran Marina del Estrecho, in Algeciras, which will open its doors next year.