Keel cooler question

[owen-cox]

I have a keel cooler have used it extensively in the UK and Med, and in both locations my ammeter tells a different story, far less power is consumed with the keel cooler and no fan (the fridge system runs for less time and consumes less power cira 4A less). IF I need a super cold fridge I switch the fan on as well but without the fan last year with ambient around 50 deg C and water at 30 deg C we were still making ice for the G&T! Water @ 30 is still a better heat conductor than air @ 50! Not often mentioned is noise, the keel cooled system makes less of that as well.

ANODES: It was explained to me by the guys from Penguin Refrig that that the with anodes option was produced in response to a requirement from Oyster marine. Mine is the with anode type but its bonded to the macduff so I have never changed them and after 7 years there is no noticeable degradation.

As I said in my first post the best option for med in my view is a water cooled unit and as I said a pumped type tube in tube condenser is better in my view as it can be isolated in case of any fault and you dont need to drill the keelcooler through the hull. Yours may have survived well but I have seen a few where the sintered bronze has disappeared and left only the cupronickel tubing poking through the hull. I spoke to Carlo Formenti the director for Frigoboat when I visited the factory and saw these coolers being made and he said that the anode was indeed unnecessary but that a yacht manufacturer had requested them after they had had problems with them ( which turned out to be an electrical fault). My own view is that they are still a weak point in your boat. If you are happy with that then carry on and good luck.

 

[dinwood]

We changed over to a keel cooled system before we left the UK 2 years ago. It gave a fantastic improvement in power use / cooling ratio and so far there is no sign of the anodes wearing more than a fraction. However we've sailed to the E med and are not connected to shore power that much, so none of the anodes are showing as much wear as we saw in a UK marina.