Cool box

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Daydream believer

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First I want tomake a couple of points:-
1) I do not have a fridge & do not want the hassle of installing one
2) I have seen the PBO article of adapting a cool box to fridge & do not want the hassle
3) I have limited battery power & cannot fit anymore due to space
4) I do not want the expense of a portable fridge
5) i only want to store butter, cheese, a bit of bacon, perhaps pork pies, sausages & a bit of meat ( very short term)- no milk
6) I never spend time at anchor ( hate it), always in ports with shore power

So my query is this: -
Has any body had the experience of cool boxes on a boat. I would like to fit a small one of about 7.5/10 litre capacity, Powered 230 V so I can have it on in port . Then when I leave I will turn itoff, leave the lid shut for a typical trip. Then plug it in to the mains at the other end. Open it an hour or so after that.
An average trip for me is 60 miles so only 10 hours, I do some 100 mile ones so some times go up to 20 hours but can adjust contents for those trips.
It would get most use when i am in port for several days at a time which is when any meat items would be in it but only for up to 24 hours. It is mainly butter cheese, salads etc that would be in it whilst sailing.
Sailing area is Channel Islands Northern France,Belgium, Holland etc
Would a cool box be practical for this & if so what model have users had experience of?
 
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The biggest problem I've found with cool boxes is mine cools to 10 degrees below air temp. It was 30+ degrees some days this summer
 
Daydream believer said:
First I want tomake a couple of points:-
1) I do not have a fridge & do not want the hassle of installing one
2) I have seen the PBO article of adapting a cool box to fridge & do not want the hassle
3) I have limited battery power & cannot fit anymore due to space
4) I do not want the expense of a portable fridge
5) i only want to store butter, cheese, a bit of bacon, perhaps pork pies, sausages & a bit of meat ( very short term)- no milk
6) I never spend time at anchor ( hate it), always in ports with shore power

So my query is this: -
Has any body had the experience of cool boxes on a boat. I would like to fit a small one of about 7.5/10 litre capacity, Powered 230 V so I can have it on in port . Then when I leave I will turn itoff, leave the lid shut for a typical trip. Then plug it in to the mains at the other end. Open it an hour or so after that.
An average trip for me is 60 miles so only 10 hours, I do some 100 mile ones so some times go up to 20 hours but can adjust contents for those trips.
It would get most use when i am in port for several days at a time which is when any meat items would be in it but only for up to 24 hours. It is mainly butter cheese, salads etc that would be in it whilst sailing.
Sailing area is Channel Islands Northern France,Belgium, Holland etc
Would a cool box be practical for this & if so what model have users had experience of?
Click to expand...

I tried a powered portable cooler box but ended up replacing it with just a well insulated cool-box (icebox). On leaving home with the box I put a frozen bottle of milk, plus anything else that is frozen, together with anything else from the house fridge including a non-frozen milk so I have some before the frozen bottle thaws. This keeps everything cold and fresh for to 2 days after which I aim to do some shopping and buy a bag of ice stocked by most supermarkets and convenience shops for between £1 and £2 a bag which goes into the bottom of the box. This keeps everything fresh for another 2 days. I have a false floor in my box that ensures that the food stays above the melted water. I have been using this arrangement for 5 years and is so much easier than worrying about powering a fridge.

Www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk the
 
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Take a look at Tropicool by Waeco. I used one on board for several years until I replaced it by a compressor fridge due to spending more time at anchor. They are thermoelectric and designed for use in hot climates. Advantages for onboard use are:
- very fast cooling at startup, useful if you get board on a hot day and need rapid cooling, or if you run your engine for a short while when underway
- once down to desired temperature, the unit automatically throttles back and reduces power consumption. Regular cool boxes operate at constant power consumption. Aha, you say, but on mains power this offers no advantage. Well it does. It means you can sleep at night as the fridge makes hardly any noise once it has cooled down rapidly on the high power cooling setting.

Search for Waeco Tropicool to see the variety of sizes available. There are a couple for sale on Gumtree at present.
 
Peltier effect coolboxes are not very effective. I had one for a while and it was very poor at cooling whilst using a lot of electricity. It will only cool to about 20 degrees below ambient and it takes a very long time to get anywhere near there. A proper thick coolbox with plenty of ice in is probably better if you do not want to use a proper fridge of any sort.
 
Teko said:
The biggest problem I've found with cool boxes is mine cools to 10 degrees below air temp. It was 30+ degrees some days this summer
Click to expand...

That's disappointing . It should do better than that but you do have to keep them on almost continuously and keep the volts up..30C below ambient is claimed for some.

Daydream believer said:
First I want tomake a couple of points:-
1) I do not have a fridge & do not want the hassle of installing one
2) I have seen the PBO article of adapting a cool box to fridge & do not want the hassle
3) I have limited battery power & cannot fit anymore due to space
4) I do not want the expense of a portable fridge
5) i only want to store butter, cheese, a bit of bacon, perhaps pork pies, sausages & a bit of meat ( very short term)- no milk
6) I never spend time at anchor ( hate it), always in ports with shore power

So my query is this: -
Has any body had the experience of cool boxes on a boat. I would like to fit a small one of about 7.5/10 litre capacity, Powered 230 V so I can have it on in port . Then when I leave I will turn itoff, leave the lid shut for a typical trip. Then plug it in to the mains at the other end. Open it an hour or so after that.
An average trip for me is 60 miles so only 10 hours, I do some 100 mile ones so some times go up to 20 hours but can adjust contents for those trips.
It would get most use when i am in port for several days at a time which is when any meat items would be in it but only for up to 24 hours. It is mainly butter cheese, salads etc that would be in it whilst sailing.
Sailing area is Channel Islands Northern France,Belgium, Holland etc
Would a cool box be practical for this & if so what model have users had experience of?
Click to expand...

I bought a 25 litre one from Lidl . Soon realised that with only a small battery , no shorepower and generally not using marinas anyway, it was not going to be much use to me. Also takes up too much space below.

However sounds as though a cool box might suit you. A portable compressor fridge might be better but would cost many times as much as a cool box.

you might take a look at the Waeco ones ( I notice there is a mains power adapter available for them!)
https://www.waecofridges.co.uk/coolbox/mobicoolu26.htm
https://www.waecofridges.co.uk/tropicool/tb08g.htm

Halfords often have coolboxes on some sort of special offer in the summer)
 
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neilf39 said:
A proper thick coolbox with plenty of ice in is probably better if you do not want to use a proper fridge of any sort.
Click to expand...

+1

If you’re in port all the time then you can instantly “recharge” it with a £1 bag of ice from the nearest supermarket, corner shop, or often marina office. Bonus is you can put a few lumps of the ice in your G&T and you won’t do that with a peltier fridge.

In any case butter, firm cheese, proper bacon, and pork pies will all keep ok at cool room temperatures anyway. I keep my butter on the kitchen sideboard because it’s no use for spreading otherwise.

Pete
 
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I have a Waeco Tropical TC14 and it works very well. However I made a mistake and should have bought the TC21. The TC14 does not have enough internal height for a wine bottle or 2 litre bottle of milk to stand upright. Being able to run on mains or 12V is very useful. A useful extra is to have a cheap electronic thermometer with the sensor in the coolbox to see the accurate temperature. They are not the cheapest, but are very well worth the money. It can also be useful to take home for events like Christmas when extra cool storage is needed.
https://www.waecofridges.co.uk/tropicool/tcx21.htm
 
Don't waste your money on a peltier type cool box. On the other hand you should be able to pick one up really cheap s/h for the same reason. Compressor fridge (use it as a freezer) (with mains converter) or insulated box with ice. Now around here (currently in the middle of 8 day heat wave all days reaching over 35) we can get an insulated bag for taking frozen stuff home from super market for a dollar up to huge insulated boxes for hundreds of dollars. https://www.bunnings.com.au/search/products?q=ice boxes A plastic box of about 15 litres is only a few dollars and you can put the ice in one of the cooler bags inside to make it last longer. So yes agree with others either ice or compressor fridge. ol'will
 
VicS said:
However sounds as though a cool box might suit you. A portable compressor fridge might be better but would cost many times as much as a cool box.

you might take a look at the Waeco ones ( I notice there is a mains power adapter available for them!)
https://www.waecofridges.co.uk/coolbox/mobicoolu26.htm
https://www.waecofridges.co.uk/tropicool/tb08g.htm
Click to expand...

The comment re fridge is why I am not going down that route. I have an in built cool box without power, but the hassle of installing a fridge unit & extra insulation is not worth it
Thanks for the link, they invite phone calls & i will do so once I have researched it a bit more

There has been comment about compressor motors running. I had not thought of that. I would definitely have to run off the mains otherwise my shore power battery charger fan would be running all night as well to compensate for the 4-5 amps used as these things are very power hungry.
Cheers
 
For many years 2004-2009 we had a 25ft outboard powered yacht and spent 2 weeks on it every year UK summer, south coast Channel Islands and Brittany. We did this all with a really good igloo cool box. My good friend from Penguin Marine had a similar outboard powered boat on which he had a 100W solar panel and a 85AH battery. He ran a small 25L fridge with a keel cooler, this set up was marvelous. If I did it again I'd get a compressor cool box like the Waeco tropicool 21 as it would save the hassle of finding ice or a freezer at a sailing club each time we hit civilization, then I'd get a 100w solar panel and a 85AH battery to extend the use of the fridge during reasonable sunlight hours.
 
Just finishing building a coolbox for my boat, (Sadler25), by modifying a bulkhead locker that was not really much use, a plywood outer construction, polystyrene insulation and an interior fabricated from perspex. It will easily accept standard camping size freezer packs and I estimate it should be as efficient as a comercially made one.
The only reason I made my own is that there didn’t seem to be a ready made one that would fit the space available.
The perspex interior I had made by a company that specialises in perspex display cases and cost about £60.
 
Nothing much new here, I'm in complete agreement with others on points below.

Compressor cool boxes are in a different league from notoriously inefficient Peltier effect boxes. Decent Waeco ones are expensive, possibly close to £300.

We used to manage many years ago with ice blocks in a cool box and that would work well if you have an existing built-in coolbox. Make small blocks of ice in your freezer and transport them in a cheap insulated container. Avoid ice cubes, aim for decent sized blocks and stack them together. Or use large eutectic freezer packs. Only use ice cubes if that's all you can get. Ice blocks from your own fridge are cheap, much longer lasting (smaller surface area).

We used to manage for 2-3 days in Greece and put up opening a valve once a day to drain water into a container in the bilge. Blocks were quite large but it was also pretty hot.

You could put freezer packs inside a Peltier type cooler but they'd take up a lot of room. Worth trying ice if you already have a larger built-in cool-box.
 
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The Halfords 24 Litre coolbox has served our needs well, on month long cruises this year and last. You will need to buy the ac mains adapter. It does not make too much noise - but we move it to the cockpit at night.
 
In term of being able to cool down to any temperature you'll want to achieve whatever the weather, & not use a huge amount of amp hours in the process, a compressor coolbox is the only realistic solution. The smallest is 10.5 litres, called the CDF11. It's not cheap at £330, but in my opinion is worth it if you are serious about wanting proper cooling on a resource & space limited boat. Any thermoelectric one will be a battery chomping luke cool disappointment by comparison.
 
I remember going caravanning in my yoof where we had a fridge called Osokool (or similar). It was made of something like plaster of Paris and had a small reservoir on the top which you topped up with water which then evaporated and cooled the contents. Not a fridge as such but stopped butter melting and milk going off. No battery required.
 
12v cool box with 240 converter plug worked OK for us for milk, cheese etc. Can pick up for £20. No DIY required. Power inefficient but if you are always have shore power not an issue. Handy to have it at home loaded up and cooling down to temp. 12v plugged in on board only when had run out of ice and had engine running. On board the whirring noise a bit intrusive at times. Insulation was pretty rubbish. It got in the way.

Well insulated top loading built in cool box with ice blocks and frozen milk are a good silent low energy solution. But high quality insulation is key. My boat had a nice cool box but the insulation wasn't great. From your described needs I would make a built in cool box with drain plug. Closed cell builder insulation. Box made out of wood and painted. I always liked the idea of a small 12v water loop keel cooler but never got round to it.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
In term of being able to cool down to any temperature you'll want to achieve whatever the weather, & not use a huge amount of amp hours in the process, a compressor coolbox is the only realistic solution. The smallest is 10.5 litres, called the CDF11. It's not cheap at £330, but in my opinion is worth it if you are serious about wanting proper cooling on a resource & space limited boat. Any thermoelectric one will be a battery chomping luke cool disappointment by comparison.
Click to expand...

That’s exactly what I am doing right now on a delivery trip. I freeze the cool box right down in a marina, then with the aid of freezer blocks, it stays cold for a few days with no power draw.
 
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