FWIW, in the sailing world a "watermaker" is a high-pressure reverse-osmosis desalinator. The fact that these have become economically feasible (barely) fairly recently has effectively doubled safe cruising range, though it's too early to see much impact. They have recently been getting more and more energy-efficient, to the point where some can be powered not just with wind generators, but with solar panels.

This has a potential long-term impact not only on life at sea, but on what areas of the world may be "habitable". There are many thousands of very attractive islands that have no permanent population simply because there's not enough fresh water. That may change now, for better or worse.

I've seen some models that have manual-pump backups in case the elecric pump system fails. I hadn't noted hand-held versions before, but it seems a natural for a life raft. They're NOT cheap, and make no sense away from seawater.

On your second point, nothing comes to mind at the moment, but I have been frustrated more than once reading survival stories- even book-length- by the lack of detail. I think what happens is that the editors and publishers get into the act and decide that "no one wants to read all this boring day-to-day stuff", and you end up with a narrative that tells what happened, but now how. Very frustrating.