There’s a line in one of the Aubury Maturin books, Clarissa Oaks when pumping the ship bilges, a sailor remarks, “she flows as clear and sweet as Hobson’s conduit”.
Fresh water was consumed in prodigious quantities in the Royal Navy, not least for watering down grog but also for extracting the salt from salted meats.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson's_Conduit
Fresh water was consumed in prodigious quantities in the Royal Navy, not least for watering down grog but also for extracting the salt from salted meats.