A former Alaskan crab fishing boat soon will be trolling Hawai'i waters seeking easier prey.

The 144-foot Spirit of the North is scheduled to leave Honolulu tomorrow for a point 3.4 miles west of Ko Olina where it will begin harvesting deep-sea drinking water. DSH International Inc., which operates as Deep Ocean Hawaii, today will bless and dedicate the ship, which formerly plied the Bering Sea in search of king crabs.

Billed as the first mobile deep-sea water harvesting platform, the ship will generate 80,000 gallons of fresh water per day through reverse osmosis desalination, or 2.4 million gallons per month, according to Deep Ocean Hawaii. That will enable bulk distribution of the water to be used in products ranging from pharmaceuticals and face cream to beer.

The ship will pump the water from a depth of 2,000 feet, remove the salt and then fill plastic-lined cargo containers that can each hold 5,200 gallons of water.

The containers, loaded on barges, will be filled from the Spirit and brought to the port of Honolulu for shipping to customers in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.

The company previously planned to start commercial water production last November. However, those plans were delayed because of changes to the company's business plan.

Hawai'i's deep-sea water industry, which sprang up about three years ago, has been a boon for the state, creating 100 jobs and an estimated $100 million in capital investments, and drawing hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from a previously untapped natural resource.

Just how big the industry will get remains to be seen. Bottled-water exports reached $37.4 million last year and, for the second year in a row, the water was Hawai'i's leading locally produced export.

"We now are at the threshold of deep-ocean water's unlimited potential to become one of the world's great new products," said Deep Ocean Hawaii president and chief executive Rudy Ahrens.

Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.