Gas or Alcohol stove for long distance cruising?

[jollysailor17]

The gas cooker is at the end of its days and the installation has served me well but needs updating. Before lighting, I always pump the bilges manually and light the gas without a second thought and all has been well. Now I have to replace the cooker, I have been wondering whether the hassle of fitting a new gas locker with bubble valve and copper pipe to the cooker, hooked up to a brand new Spinflo or similar is worth it, or ditching the lot and buying an Origo alcohol cooker with oven. The Origo is a lot more expensive, but installation is a lot easier and cheaper. I have used a Taylor paraffin pressure stove, but not the Origo (and do not have the budget for a new Taylors) which uses a simple non pressure system. Clearly the Origo will be slower to boil water, but I am seldom in a hurry as I always fill a thermos each time I brew up so never have to start with cold water.
I would welcome comment from those of you who may have switched from gas to an alcohol stove and those who have gone the other way. Finally, I wonder which fuel would be easiest to find when long distance cruising south of the Equator?

 

[vyv_cox]

Personally, I would have a bonfire in the cockpit before I had an Origo but others will tell you it's the finest kit ever invented. My son bought a boat with one recently and the first job he did was to get rid of it and fit a gas stove, so he seems to agree with me.

In well over 20 years of gas use on board I have never had a moment's problem with it. Fast, reliable, clean, smell free and safe. Can't speak for south of the equator but throughout Europe gas is widely available.

 

[Severnman]

Yep like marmite! Personally I love my Origo and would heartily recommend.

 

[Athene V30]

I am going through the same decision process too.

My doubt about the spirit stove is memories of sailing a sonata in my youth and living with an aroma of meths below decks. Is there a lingering aroma with Origo?

 

[vyv_cox]

Yep like marmite! Personally I love my Origo and would heartily recommend.

But I love Marmite

 

[agurney]

I am going through the same decision process too.

My doubt about the spirit stove is memories of sailing a sonata in my youth and living with an aroma of meths below decks. Is there a lingering aroma with Origo?

There's only a smell if you let the meths burn out.

Alcohol should be easy to obtain anywhere, especially with the push for biofuels around the globe.

 

[planteater]

Yep like marmite! Personally I love my Origo and would heartily recommend.

Another Origo fan here. My last boat came with an Origo and I moved it to my current boat. Never again will I try to transfer gas bottles from an inflatable!

Simplicity and lightness, as championed by Chapman!

 

[jollysailor17]

I love marmite as well especially on toast. Yum

 

[V1701]

I have gas but also keep a Trangia stove (meths burning) that can be placed on top of the gas stove and held in place with the pan clamps if I run out of gas...

 

[Conachair]

You might be better off asking on the liveaboard forum. I've always had gas and only alchohol as being expensive in little bottles in the supermercados. More out of the way places it might be hard to come by, decent quantities of decent quality anyway. But dunno, someone on liveaboard might have been bluewater with alchohol.

 

[maxi77]

I don't mind the smell from an Origo, but Mrs Maxi just hates it, so whilst I am allowed the marmite we don't have an Origo.

Before taking the plunge cook a few meals etc on one and also check out with any one who sails with you, the smell cam make some more sensitive ones more prone to seasickness.

Great bits of kit like Tragias for camping but not without their own little problems

 

[Fascadale]

I went through the same process.

It would have been costly and complex to bring the gas system up to standard so I got rid of it all and bought an Origo. Great bit of kit. Perfectly satisfactory for cooking boat food, no serious smell problems and no having to get up in the middle of the night to check the gas is off.

And if you find a way to get hold of IDA then even fewer smell problems

So its Marmite for me

 

[prv]

I've used alcohol cookers camping although not on a boat.

Personally for "long distance cruising" I'd have gas every time. It's the easiest to cook with, and if you're cooking every meal on board (as opposed to the odd fryup on a Sunday morning before sailing home) then that matters.

As long as you can burn both butane and propane, and have a good selection of adaptors, the consensus of what I've read is that you can generally get gas most places in the world. A single-burner camping stove that can run off diesel/paraffin/petrol might be a handy backup in case of running out somewhere remote.

Pete

 

[Cymrogwyllt]

As a kayaker I've found the trangia far superior to any gas fired unit. The faster the blow the hotter it gets.

 

[TQA]

IMHO if you are off the beaten track you will find it easier to get a gas refill than alcohol, on the track "Pani Problem" except in the French Islands where you need their bottles.

 

[Gordonmc]

I have lived with an alcohol cooker for the last six years on my boat just sold. It was installed because I had nowhere I could build a self-draining gas locker and bottles on deck were a no-no.
The cooker is an USA built three-burner and oven job with a pressure tank to supply the fuel.
Efficiency-wise the cooker was as good as gas for boiling a kettle and the oven was superior with better heat distribution.
As for sourcing fuel, UK regs make it a bind to use IDA with only limited licencing for specific uses, which do not include cooking. Nevertheless I have been using IDA since installing the stove as I don't like the smell of de-natured purple meths. A five litre tin will do me most of a season.
Alcahol Brulee (Sp?), however, seems to be freely available in continental supermarkets.

 

[Kelpie]

If you are planning long distance trips without resupply, I would have thought that the alcohol supply woudl add up quite a large volume. It is simply not as efficient a fuel as the other options. Plus, if you buy it at UK prices, as meths, it will be bloomin expensive.

Personally, we use an optimus parrafin stove which runs off central heating oil (50p/litre instead of about £4/litre for meths) and the burners are 2.5kw which is the same as the wok burner on our cooker at home. But it's not for everyone, and they are expensive new, as you say. We tend to only light it up a few times a day because it is a bit of a chore, so we make sure we fill a thermos with boiling water in case we want a cuppa later on.

The parrafin stoves are very robustly made, compared to the cheaper gas stoves anyway, and I would have no worries about picking up a second hand one.

 

[smonard]

I had an origo for one season didn't like it much. It was slow and ordinary meths smells bad. Mine wasn't gimbaled and when heeled even slightly didn't work very well.
I now have an old two burner primus 535 paraffin stove. You sometimes see them on ebay same burners as the optimus and Taylors stoves. They are very good and fun in a scary sort of way. The tank is in the stove body so you can put in the cockpit and do some cooking out there if you want.