The best oil for oil lamps?

[dancrane]

Thanks gents. That's made my mind up, I want oil lamps. :encouragement:

 

[Kukri]

I have actually sailed with oil navigation lamps. For several thousand miles.

Allow a significant amount of oil; you have two of them (the traditional approach was to carry a torch in the cockpit and use that as a stern light). Good ones will not blow out but they will shake out - indeed the trad. way to put them out in the morning is to tap them on the deck.

 

[scottie]

Does it need to be a light viscosity?

 

[sailorman]

Does it need to be a light viscosity?

Only for daytime use

 

[Hadenough]

Does it need to be a light viscosity?

No, just a light fandango

 

[Hydrozoan]

As already suggested, lamp oil will be rather more pleasant below decks than plain paraffin although it won't be totally odour free (I personally like the smell, it's evocative of boating to me) …

There’s a curious sense of olfactory disappointment about lamp oil compared with paraffin.

Mr Cunliffe may say that ‘most of us have oil lamps in our cabins’, but I do wonder how many of us use them regularly. We tend to knock into ours on the bulkhead and have wondered about simply getting rid of them. But we’d need a couple of paintings of lighthouses to hide the holes of the lamps and the heat shields above them, so it has not happened yet - and we keep saying we ought to use them more often …

Perhaps someone has a solution involving conversion to LED ‘wicks’ and sachets of paraffin perfume?

 

[dancrane]

I was looking through the photos of a yacht for sale, and the owner had proudly removed a switch panel to reveal the wiring behind. It wasn't even a big yacht...oh my lord, so much tangled wiring.

If when I buy a yacht which requires electricity I can eliminate most of that, I'll be happier. Oil lamps must be a good first step.

 

[FWB]

I was looking through the photos of a yacht for sale, and the owner had proudly removed a switch panel to reveal the wiring behind. It wasn't even a big yacht...oh my lord, so much tangled wiring.

If when I buy a yacht which requires electricity I can eliminate most of that, I'll be happier. Oil lamps must be a good first step.

Immerse yourself in Frank Cowper...
http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv38f6567b

 

[Kukri]

Best cabin light is a Tilley lamp - IF you have a skylight.

 

[Bru]

Best cabin light is a Tilley lamp - IF you have a skylight.

Only if you can tolerate the hiss (which I can't)

 

[dancrane]

Immerse yourself in Frank Cowper...
http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv38f6567b

Funny. Reminiscent of W. W. Jacobs' wonderful stories of late-Victorian/Edwardian steamship hands, getting into mischief on their time off in London between voyages.

Nice to find them online: http://readcentral.com/massappealnews//chapters/WW-Jacobs/Light-Freights/002

I wonder to what extent the dim memory of warmth and colour from an oil-lamp flame is obscuring the likely reality of life aboard a plastic yacht in the darkening days of 2016?

 

[Bru]

I wonder to what extent the dim memory of warmth and colour from an oil-lamp flame is obscuring the likely reality of life aboard a plastic yacht in the darkening days of 2016?

It's a considerable help (puts quite a lot of heat into the saloon when all three are lit too. Which is also a considerable help right now)

 

[emma jacob]

Highly refined liquid paraffin lamp fuel is what comes to my mind first. It is virtually odorless