Ice maker vs fridge?

Kelpie said:
Which shops sell frozen bottles of water??
Cruising up here you have to take what you can get with shops. Likewise with shore power! In fact I have never connected a boat to shore power and do not own the requisite equipment. The vast majority of nights spent aboard are in locations without shore power so i have never seen the point.
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Sorry, I should have said "In the Med." Having noticed the name Kelpie, I suspect that you are somewhat farther North.

However, I can vouch for what others have said about a few litre bottles of frozen water keeping a coolbox very cold for a good few days. Where frozen water is not available, we have been known to buy a few bottles and ask the shop to pop it in with the Magnums and ice lollies overnight for us to pick up the next day before sailing.

it works for us - but then we hardly ever run the engine so the "fridge" is really more of a coolbox.
 
Yes, as my profile says, I'm up on bonnie Skye.
Usual procedure for visiting a shop is: anchor, row, walk. You don't pop back for a second visit.
The main purposes for having a cooler of some kind is to extend the number of days on which we can have some fresh meat available. We currently leave the house with perhaps three days worth, at least one being a frozen portion. As we can very easily be longer than three days between shops it would be nice to extend this. SWMBO doesn't really do the whole vegetarian thing.
 
What a lovely cruising ground to have, although I bet the conversation around the pontoons is more about eberspacher heaters than coolboxes!

As a veggie, I am not the best person to comment about keeping meat fresh as long as possible but I reckon that packing the meat portions in separate sealed styrofoam containers full of (dry) ice would help. I have noticed that when the coolbox is unopened for a couple of days things remain pretty much frozen.

I wonder how long trawlers keep their catches packed in ice in those styrofoam boxes when they are out at sea. I imagine it is for quite a few days. Perhaps they have ice makers on board.

I am amazed that nobody has mentioned Fray Bentos pies yet!
 
Trawlers load up with ice at the pier. These facilities are few and far between though, and I have never tried to buy ice from them myself. The smaller boats that are only out for the day don't really need any cooling and are mostly dealing with live shellfish.

Not too much in the way of pontoon chat... because there is not that much in the way of pontoons. More facilities are appearing all the time though.

It is still a fantastic cruising ground and. I wouldn't swap it for anything. I enjoy the need to be self reliant. Of course I've never cruised anywhere else so perhaps I am missing out.

As for Fray Bentos... I should mention that we don't have an oven either! SWMBO enjoys cooking from fresh so a way of extending the shelf life of fresh meat would be a big bonus.
 
Kelpie said:
Which shops sell frozen bottles of water??
.
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Plenty in Turkey, but the fishermens co-ops and some shops sell big blocks of ice for about 5 Lire (£1.20) which are far better valure and stay frozen in my fridge for several days when the daytime temperature is in the high 30's Celcius.
 
Kelpie said:
It is still a fantastic cruising ground and. I wouldn't swap it for anything. I enjoy the need to be self reliant. Of course I've never cruised anywhere else so perhaps I am missing out.
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We had an interesting moment over your way at the tail end of July last year. Having been stuck in Lochmaddy for 3 days we hurtled across to a bay in Loch Snizort (Aros Bay? I can't remember its name) where we stayed overnight until the wind went even more bonkers and we sought shelter in Loch Greshornish. Anchored in about 8m with 60m of chain out and 40 knots of wind I said to my wife, 'Oh look - there's a dinghy like ours on the shore over there'. Yep, you've guessed it. Recovery was fun.

Here's a snapshot on the shores of Snizort:

26772153341_22b1ea79b1_z.jpg
 
Did you anchor near the campsite at Greshornish? If so you'll have passed within a couple of hundred yards of Kelpie on your way down the loch- our home mooring is at the fish farm. Pretty snug spot, unlike most of the sea lochs on Skye the lack of high surrounding hills keeps things from getting too squally.
We don't get as many visiting yachts as you might expect though as it's a detour for most people, and the village shop at Edinbane closed a couple of year ago. Still got an excellent pub though with live music and great food.
 
Absolutely - that's where our dinghy ended up. We saw a yacht at the fish farm. You're not connected to the hotel owners, by any chance? Long story...
 
northwind said:
We've just brought one of these..
https://www.marinesuperstore.com/refrigeration/cool-boxes/waeco-fr35-portable-fridge-freezer

Not measured power consumption yet, but it works well in the car.
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We used a Waeco CF35 (I think it was) on our Vancouver 27 during the period she was in the Balearics and then the Algarve and it worked faultlessly. You can fire it up using 220 volts shore power when available or 12 volts when unavailable. Our 80 watt solar panel coped well with all our onboard 12 volt needs including this Waeco fridge. Money well spent n my opinion, these are good well thought out and well built bits of kit and the only sensible option and I'm surprised your suggestion hasn't been discussed in more detail.
 
Wandering Star said:
We used a Waeco CF35 (I think it was) on our Vancouver 27 during the period she was in the Balearics and then the Algarve and it worked faultlessly. You can fire it up using 220 volts shore power when available or 12 volts when unavailable. Our 80 watt solar panel coped well with all our onboard 12 volt needs including this Waeco fridge. Money well spent n my opinion, these are good well thought out and well built bits of kit and the only sensible option and I'm surprised your suggestion hasn't been discussed in more detail.
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It does look like a great piece of kit and I have tried to find a space on the boat to stow it, but it just won't go, unless we sacrifice one end of a settee berth. The smaller version seems to need a hefty inverter to power the 220v side and if you run off 12v it is not in compressor mode so will be power hungry. So, the ice machine remains a contender as a stopgap solution until I get round to butchering the galley to make space for a fridge...
 
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