Stove gimbals necessry?

pugwash

pugwash

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Our passages seldom last more than 24 hours and we're heading for France rather than the Caribbean, so do you think a gimballed cooker is really necessary? I think high adjustable fiddles would cover most one-pot-cooking contingencies and brew-ups. Not having gimbals would release a huge amount of galley space and we'd go for a flat hob without an oven, likely the new flat one with three burners. SWMBO is very keen but she sails only in fair weather and when I get to the other side. I'm unsure. What do you think?
 
See your point. I guess a pressure cooker with decent fiddles would make what you are suggesting possible to use at most angles of heel. Oven/grill can be quite useful though.
 
in a monohul, yes very necessary. I know from experience that if you leave a gimballed stove locked, you cannot boil a kettle while sailing. All the heat misses the kettle!
 
Both the Boats I have owned over the last 15 Years have had fixed stoves. I can honestly say that I have never noticed the need for Gimbals.

Having said that I purchased some Gimbals for my current boat about five years ago. They are still in the cupboard waiting to be fixed.

I would say that if your boat is leaning, so far that you can't cook without Gimbals, you ain't sailing it right!

Martin
 
No not necessary.
I have sailed a Berwick in all weathers across the channel etc. Although the cooker is gimbled the skipper keeps it fixed. Sometimes I have released it but he usually fixes it again. We seldom feel like much cooking in the sort of weather that might requires the cooker to be and we have a length or wire handy to anchor the kettle when necessary. (the old coffe pot was a bit unseaworthy though!)

If you have someone with a strong stomach who is going to want to stay below cooking in rough conditions fair enough but otherwise no.
 
How about the opposite question: if you have gimbals do you need the facility to lock it off, we have fitted a plastime neptune 2500 which fits very nicely on gimbals but I can`t see an easy way to lock it off without adding a Heath Robinson arrangement of wooden blocks and bolts.

To be a real devil`s advocate: how many weekend cruisers cook at sea anyway? For coastal sailing and the annual cross channel holiday do most people rely on sandwiches and flasks or tinnies and mars bars etc, hardly blue water stuff!
 
I'll join the dissenters on this I had a Shipman which I bought with a fixed cooker,top of the to do list;fit gimbals.
After 5 years I hadn't done it.
Deep oven pan for pies(Is Fray Bentos still in favour) and point the kettle spout up hill,no problems.In all sorts of sea conditions,but a good system of guard rails was essential.
Ready about-load windward winch,turn kettle,not a problem.
 
Gimballs are essential on our boat - the pizza would fall off the oven shelf otherwise!! And yes - we cook whilst we sail - even delaying a sail change until the pizza was ready and eaten.... (didn't want it to get cold!)
 
Re: gimbals can produce problems

OK Roger, been there - 'cos I forgot to lock the darn thing.

This is a more complex question than first appears: it's about what suits you, what suits others, what suits now, what might be more useful when you or someone else has the stomach to go below and produce boeuf bournignon while bashing to windward.
IMHO there is only one solution for a sailing boat: a gimballed cooker which can be locked off in port. And that does NOT need much extra space (Boat Safety Code sez 2" clear all round. Really?)
Gimbals are essential if you have a hearty on board who can hand out bacon sarnies as you round St Albans at dawn - Yummy!

Thinks: that's the raggies sorted . . .

Now stinkers, I'll admit to being gobsmacked when pics of my present boat showed a stove not only fixed but thwartships.
But not crazy at all and after 2 seasons I concede it's the obvious place. For the motion of my 5-ton semi-displacement angler is far worse in a chop than any sailing boat I've ever owned. So living on sarnies and a thermos of soup is de rigeur for 8 hours - but that's Portsmouth to Cherbourg now!
Incidentally I'm one of 90% of the population who's sick as a dog at the beginning of the season. But it does get better the more often you go to sea, and after 6-8 consecutive weekends you crack it.
(Yep, I'm the one knocking out bacon sarnies . . . .)
 
Re: gimbals can produce problems

I've sailed with both, and now have a gimballed stove that can be locked off. I don't often use it unlocked, and I do cook at sea. I guess the ideal is to have a choice, but if I had a fixed stove I wouldno't bother to convert it to swinging. By the by, isn't it strictly the case that "gimbals" means a device that articulates in two directions, like in a compass, and that a stove is "swung"?
 
[ QUOTE ]
I would say that if your boat is leaning, so far that you can't cook without Gimbals, you ain't sailing it right!

[/ QUOTE ]

I beg to differ. I agree that it varies boat-boat, but the only boats I have sailed with fixed stoves have been around 50 tons displacement or multi hulls. On my last boat (Horizon 26) even in a F3 on a dead flat sea (I think it happened once!) there is sufficient heel for the meat pies to fall onto the flame at the back of the oven, and the kettle, even clamped tight with fiddles, to sit at an angle and not heat up.

I know this because I always locked it when not sailing and regularly forgot to unclamp it.
 
We wouldn't be without the gimballed stove, particularly in port when we have line dancing in the cockpit, the boat tends to lean a bit...
Underway we only use the cooker for coffee ,tea and heating up FB pies and jacket spuds.
If we didn't have gimbals we'd have quite a lot of spilt boiling water while underway along with a few scalds...
 
Personally, I have always fitted stoves with gymbals on the monohulls I have owned, but then I prefer eating a little and often to feeling hungry then cold then sick.

Even for heating hot water for drinks / soups its a lot safer than a fixed cooker on a small boat. The rougher it gets the more important hot drinks are for keeping crew functioning.

On the other hand if all you ever intend to do is day sailing and you prefer to use flasks and cold food why bother.

On my latest boat (small cruising cat) the surveyor was horrified to find a fixed cooker and no fiddle rail. Fitted the latter but have never really needed it, but then have only sailed three quarters of the way around Britain with this boat.
 
As an East coaster I reckon gimbals are essential so you can have a cup of tea when waiting for the tide to refloat you.
 
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