There remain many people on Vanuatu who still are without a regular water supply a year after category 5 cyclone Pam devastated the island group.

There's one island village that has to ferry their water in 20 litre containers from across the bay in Havannah Harbour. It's about a two-hour trip across the four mile about 6.5km wide harbour.

Allan Dent has a watermaker for Vanuatu

Tauranga yachtie Allan Dent became aware of their plight during a recent voyage. He found himself trying to start a brand new diesel engine on the beach of the island that's been there for three years.

The pump it was supposed to drive is about three miles away at the other end of a 50mm pipe, says Allan.

He was told pipelines don't work connecting villages with water supplies because every intervening village and individual with a screw driver simply holes to pipe to get a supply

Allan's got a better idea. His son Chris makes watermakers in Auckland, and he's come up with a diesel powered portable watermaker the isolated Vanuatu villages can use to draw fresh water from seawater any time.

All he needs is about $30,000 to buy one.

'Just someone to buy. I'll take it up there,” says Allan. 'It won't be too hard to ship it up there further down the track.

'It's just open ended at this stage. Somehow or other we will get there.”

Chris' watermaker is powered by a 6hp diesel and produces about 550 litres of fresh water every hour from seawater.

It weighs 270kg and will fit across one of the outboard powered longboats that are in use everywhere around Vanuatu, says Allan. That means the source of fresh water is mobile and can be used among a wider population. It will suck water four metres above sea level, and 25 metres from a floating sea suction.

Allan's contactable through cjdwatermakers.com