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zoidberg

zoidberg

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Doing a refurb on a 27' boat. Stowage space is limited. Some difficult decisions to be made....

F'r example, do I allocate a small volume for a fridge, to keep the beers in.... or build in a small locker for the wine?
 
I like a cold lager but a fridge is a blight on a small boat. You could well end up building the boat and your sailing around it.

Get some good red in and adjust your palate to Draught Bass.
 
zoidberg said:
Doing a refurb on a 27' boat. Stowage space is limited. Some difficult decisions to be made....

F'r example, do I allocate a small volume for a fridge, to keep the beers in.... or build in a small locker for the wine?
Click to expand...

Where do you sail? Where I am, the bilge is cool enough and big enough for both.
 
You could consider a 12volt coolbox. It works for me, keeps a few days perishables cold. Run it during the day, turn it off at night. Halfords best. It draws up to 4amps so you need to run your engine to charge your domestic battery. Getting in and out of harbours is usually enough for charging as I have a smart charger.
 
I have a nice, simple ice box. It melts 2kg per day in hot weather and 1kg per day when it's cloudy. I have a mental map of ice availability round the west of Scotland, but have never run out and rarely run low.
 
I sailed the Med. in a 1980, 27' Trapper 500 for 15 years without a fridge and didn't suffer. Beer in the bilge and no milk or butter - never touch 'em. But I did have a built-in, insulated cool-box with drainage, its access lid set into the galley worktop, intended for ice - in the days and places it was easily available - not in my normal cruising area, The Adriatic.

Then I fitted a cooling plate to the ice-box with the compressor tubing running through the adjacent bulkhead to which the compressor itself was fitted in the cockpit locker - it kept the heat and noise out of the cabin. It was a great success and thenceforth, for the next 9 years until I sold it, wondered how I managed before. But of course, I did, and until I no longer needed to, it had seemed normal.

A bottle or two of wine can fit in anywhere - there was never a need to stock up as good and inexpensive wine was available everywhere in Italy and Croatia. The best was delivered by a local Croatian while anchored in the Kornati, he came alongside with fresh bread and plastic, ex-mineral-water bottles, unlabelled, 1.5 litre ones, filled to the brim with dark, red wine, which I viewed suspiciously the first day, but on the second enthusiastically took two more for just a few kuna.


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A small well insulated cool box big enough to take the perishables plus a few beers and cooled by a frozen 2l bottle of water. No need for ice as the bottle will last 3-4 days.
 
We sail four to five weeks Adriatic without fridge, and average temperature are 35C. Crew always look forward getting in to small harbour and ordering cold beer. Beer in Croatia is cheaper then fizzy drinks!
 
I'm hoping that my small, inefficient Halfords 12v coolbox will keep milk and butter fresh for a few days. I have a small solar panel and not much other electrical kit so it should cope and won't be run overnight. I could do with a gadget to turn it off at low voltage but as my inboard outboard starts with a cord it's not too disastrous if the battery dips a bit.
I'll maybe butcher some polystyrene packaging to increase insulation.
 
Lockers low down in the bilge, or rather racks, can be good for wine storage, so makes good use of what some consider dead space. I would not have a fridge in a boat that seize but go for the cool box. A cool box is likely to have far more volume as well for a comparable space that a fridge would sit in.
 
As it's the season, and someone 'cumbled' about tit on another thread, many thanks and bottoms up!

Mind you, I'm surprised no-one suggested having a 'dry boat' and buying the beers safe in a quayside bar or club....
 
I have a small portable Waeco fridge box. I'm calling it a fridge because it is just that, complete with compressor, but it is just as portable as a cool box (well maybe a little bit heavier...) It draws about 4-5 amps when running, but that is typically about 5% of the time so my solar panel keeps up easily, especially somewhere like Croatia or on those rare sunny days in the UK when you want it the most. The real beauty is that I can stock it at home, run it off the car on the way to the boat (or when towing the boat somewhere nice) and then simply lift it aboard already full and cold.......
 
Pleasure has to include cold beers and ice in the G and T or rum and coke. Even in a 24 footer we had a cool box with iced water and OJ from the home freezer topped up with bags of ice as sailed from one place to the next.
Middle ground in a 31 footer was built in cool box and a very expensive tiny portable 12 freezer with loud compressor but little storage that we used to store an make ice.
Now we have a boat in the Med it's engine run fridge and 240v £99 mini ice maker from Amazon.
All the solutions worked for their time. We spent a lot fewer evenings at anchor on the smallest boat so coped with the limitations which we would not enjoy now.
 
Triassic said:
...... I can stock it at home, run it off the car on the way to the boat (or when towing the boat somewhere nice) and then simply lift it aboard already full and cold.......
Click to expand...

I'll remember that the next time we're in Baltimore.... ;)
 
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