Induction vs Gas Cooking

[Captain Anthony]

following

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

The secret we found to our gas oven was to put mass in it to hold heat, a pizza stone works well, but without it, I assume temp changes rapidly. Ours is if anything too hot, to cook at 350 we need to set it at about 300, the stone may have something to do with that, or maybe is just the 33 ur old oven. It will easily hold over 400 F.

You can do without thru hulls, a sea chest. I looked at a home build that I probably should have bought, a steel boat that had a sea chest and real water proof doors etc. lots of really nice features, real engine room / work area etc.
But the boat still needed some interior work, and it was over 50’, and at the time I wasn’t sure we would do the cruising thing.

Well, a sea chest is also a hole in the boat. It's better than through hulls, maybe a lot better, but doesn't eliminate the risk of flooding.


Maybe I'll try the pizza stone thing -- good tip


But I don't use my oven much anyway. On a vegetarian diet you don't cook as much altogether. If I have access to fresh vegetables most of my meals are entirely uncooked.



I almost died in the Arctic, however. That is no country for vegetarians! To this day I want to puke if I smell pasta cooking! My provisioning for that trip was a big fail despite my large freezer.


But I have up to 7 people on board here at a time, and people have all different diets. Most are happy without meat but not all, so all kinds of different things get cooked or baked. So the galley has to be ready for anything.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Thanks - I'm surprised. I cook a lot and have for 40+ years. I wonder if oven use is climate influenced?

Certainly. In temperate zones and above I cook what I like when I like. In the tropics and subtropics it depends on the boat. Some are sufficiently well ventilated that it doesn’t matter. Others mean time shifting. Cook a roast early in the day before an outing and let the boat cool off. Heat later in the day or serve cold. Roast veg (which don’t reheat very well) get subbed with steamed. More green stuff and fewer roots. Certainly maximize use of a rail-mounted grill/BBQ/whatever (terminology differs). Stove-top cooking over gas has simply never been a big temperature issue. Technique perhaps? Mise en place reduces the time burners are on which is as useful for induction (energy consumption) as for gas (heat).

To misquote the movie Jaws “we’re going to need a bigger cutting board.”

Originally Posted by mvweebles

For what it's worth, I will be replacing my Dickenson gas BBQ with a small (17") Blackstone propane griddle. Much more versatile, and it's much easier to keep clean.

Interesting. I’d call that a flat-top vice a griddle but that’s just terminology. What leaps to mind are pancakes, no end of different eggs, grilled cheese (a real one not Kraft and Wonder). You can get a cast iron grill pan to lay over it and do anything you could do on a conventional BBQ grill and a pot of rice or veg on the side is easier to manage than a BBQ grill.

For the record I am not a chef or even a professional cook. I am an avid and I’d like to think accomplished amateur. My delivery crews generally come home having gained weight. For Dockhead – my apologies for forgetting you are vegetarian. I have delivered a few vegetarian boats and one militant vegan one. I’ve even delivered a Halal boat. For that one I had notes taped up in the galley.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Sure, but I think you missed the point. The question is not EITHER electricity OR gas. You have electricity anyway. The question is Electricity PLUS gas, or just electricity. Clearly the first thing is simpler, safer, and has less things to go wrong with it. You have to look at it from a systems point of view, no?

I swear I got your point. Definitely systems point of view. The challenge is you have to go back and for the between 30,000 ft (systems) and 50 ft (implementation). For example, your clothes washer and your cooking are NOT in the same category. First and easiest is the current draw is lower for your clothes washer. At least as important is the duty cycle. The difference between running a couple of loads of laundry once a week is different from two or three meals a day, driving thermal cycling.

Again, we need to look at FMEA. In your case with reasonable redundancy I think you close the gap but you still have a number of single points of failure. However you are taking your specific situation and generalizing it to say that induction is always better than gas. There simply is no engineering basis for reaching that conclusion. Sometimes adding a completely independent system increases robustness and reliability. Your boat is already a system of systems, is it not? When you change the demands on a system it is not the same system anymore.

I take exception to your statement that electricity only is simpler, safer, and has “less things to go wrong with it” than electricity plus gas. It simply isn’t. If you can provide a needed function in a simpler fashion you increase reliability.

Remember that vegans, vegetarians, and semi-vegetarians (whatever that means) are 8% worldwide. That leaves a lot of people who don’t provision as you do and are more affected by loss of cooking. I return to my question about what to do with all that raw chicken. I’m not huge on raw beef either, especially ground. What to do if the inverter fails and the generator won’t start halfway between Azores and Bermuda? If you look at the ARC data generators and watermakers are the most likely to fail on significant passages. Inverters are not far behind especially with large loads. Inverter/chargers are more susceptible to failure than separate inverters and chargers. I’m working from memory here.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I think the induction hobs are basically disposable.

But you don’t carry spares. I’m glad you’re turning your attention to spares for your LPG system as I would not want you to go hungry. I do keep saying “at sea” but that concern also applies when well off the grid when parts and replacements have long shipping times.

Some of this comes down to risk management. Risk management in engineering considers probability of occurrence AND impact of occurrence. High probability with low impact (failure to trim finger nails leads to a turned nail) Is different from low probability with high impact (sorting an inverter failure and shorting high current 24VDC through your body with obvious bad results).

So you raise risk of failure. Breaking the glass top of an induction hob may seem low probability but there are reasonable scenarios that lead to that – high impact. Let’s not lose sight of the impact of hot meals on morale which effects judgment, reaction time, and attention. There are more vulnerabilities than the glass top. They aren’t meant for electronics to be exposed to high heat (i.e. mounted over an oven). They are not waterproof or even water resistant. They are subject to electronic failure from any number of causes; moving from inverter power to generator power and vice versa has a transient that reduces service life (this isn’t good for lots of other things on boats either – worth bearing in mind).

Originally Posted by Dockhead

From a systems point of view, do you prefer easy to repair, or cheap and easy to replace?

Yes. *grin* I prefer things I can get going again at sea even by expedients. Cheap to replace is great if I’m somewhere I can do so which leads to easy. Two week lead time might be a problem for some people.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

But in any case, total electrical failure is a Mayday event on many boats now, or nearly so. I need electrical power for navigation, autopilot, water supply, refrigeration, even the diesel heating won't work without power. If I have a total electrical failure, God forbid, I'll be eating emergency rations or tinned goods or whatever; cooking will not be even on the first page of the list of things to worry about.

The problem need not be total to have an impact. I have a story that includes a failure cascade. On a Moody as it happens. We left Fort Lauderdale headed for Annapolis. Boat recently purchased fair amount of upgrades and service on everything. About a day out it became apparent the battery bank was not holding a charge. I carry a fair amount of kit so started diagnosis. It looked like two problems: the alternator wasn’t charging and the batteries (I recall eight 6VDC golf carts in series-parallel). A lot of isolation (which meant no power to the boat so hand-steering by crew to magnetic compass) and some swapping around and we got 450 Ah of discharged batteries back online (the batteries with dead cells had pulled down the whole bank). Started the generator and battery charger and we were running. Crew meeting and I said we’re going back to Ft Lauderdale. Crew asked why not go to Vero Beach, just a day further and make progress. No. We don’t know what else might fail and the vendor who did the work might be arm-twisted into meeting us on Sunday in Ft Lauderdale but not in Vero Beach. Six hours later the generator failed. We went on electrical rations and limped into Fort Lauderdale. Called the owner when I got a cell signal and his first question was “why not Vero?” Explained the logic and he accepted. TowboatUS shadowed us in and called the two bridges we needed opened for us (VHF pooped out from low voltage and we were navigating from my phone and with help from TowboatUS). Ended up as an open circuit in the alternator field coil and a bad sensor on the generator. Neither amenable to fixing at sea. Some very clear discussion with the vendor over the phone got us on and off the dock in six hours on a Sunday with three days lost. Owner met us in Norfolk to sail up the Chesapeake and went through the paperwork and experience with me and heard perspective from crew as well (I run full disclosure boats). We got to Annapolis and the owner learned his buddies who were going to sail with him to NJ had no-showed. His response was “Good. Can you come with me the rest of the way so I can learn what the crew learned?” We had a great trip. *grin* Point is that failure cascades happen, and more often than we would like. That’s why risk management and FMEA exist as engineering disciplines.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Case on point. What a faff on top of everything else to have to think about date limited and highly vulnerable to water sensors which have to be changed all the time. Bleh! Yet another big downside of gas. Damn sensors are costly as well.

As opposed to oil filters, fuel filters, impellers, fuses, and your disposable induction hobs?

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Hoses deterioriate. Ozone? I check them by flexing them. When you see a small crack is time to change them. I get 2 or 3 years out of them.

Hmm. Too much electricity use on board that generates ozone? *grin* <-joke I get ten years or more from hoses. Regulators should last a decade or more.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I remember that -- it's a fantastic solution /ring terminal/ Kind of cutting the Gordian knot and just eliminating the most problematic electrical connection on board . I would do it like that myself, except I wouldn't be able to deal with the cord. I can't leave it on deck -- remember where I sail and how much green water I have. I need to get the cord off the deck when I'm at sea.

I take it off. It’s only three connections. It takes five minutes which is more than 30 seconds. I work pretty hard to minimize work and time. This is one I don’t feel bad about.

Originally Posted by a64pilot

The lid on my propane locker is not sealed, never was, water off the deck drains into it and then overboard through the drain. The drain has never clogged yet, but if it does it’s going to be real easy to clean out as it’s about a 1 foot hose.

But Dockhead’s experience WAS with a plugged drain. I’ve had them also with everything from leaves to flying fish to jellyfish.

Originally Posted by a64pilot

We never really use the gimbal the stove stays locked down, if we are really rolling at sea, she isn’t cooking, and I believe that to be unsafe anyway whether electric or gas, lots of hot stuff to burn you, so we eat sandwiches etc until the wx dies down, usually we aren’t that hungry in bad weather anyway.

We cook pretty much regardless. It may be simpler fare but we cook. Especially in bad weather something warm goes down well. When baking and roasting we generally lock the cooker at the last minute. The weight of the door being opened unbalances things and can put your lasagna on the floor. *sigh* It’s easier to time things with the cooker locked. Generally for me its swinging when cooking.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Captain Anthony

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[a64pilot]

A sea chest can or does reduce or eliminate flooding Top is above water line and of course all the valves are located in one place, and the sea chest should also be in a water tight room. Done correctly all the thru hulls are in one place, easily inspected and if something were to happen to one of them, easily dealt with
Way above reality for a small boat like mine, but it’s do-able.

Point being that with enough planning and good design most any threat can be nearly eliminated.
Take propane for instance, the locker, the solenoid, a gas detector located under the stove along with thermocouples in every burner pretty much covers nearly every possible issue.
Then if you replace the hose every decade or so, that pretty much covers any possible failure mode.
Systems fail that weren’t properly maintained, and yes even on Government boats.

Any leak in the HP supply side and it drains overboard from the locker, and leak on the LP side and the gas detector goes off, if any eye goes out, the thermocouple shut off gas flow.
The low pressure side is exceedingly low pressure so low it’s hard to believe it works. It’s usually less than 1/2 PSI.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

A sea chest can or does reduce or eliminate flooding Top is above water line and of course all the valves are located in one place, and the sea chest should also be in a water tight room. Done correctly all the thru hulls are in one place, easily inspected and if something were to happen to one of them, easily dealt with
Way above reality for a small boat like mine, but it’s do-able.

Point being that with enough planning and good design most any threat can be nearly eliminated.
Take propane for instance, the locker, the solenoid, a gas detector located under the stove along with thermocouples in every burner pretty much covers nearly every possible issue.
Then if you replace the hose every decade or so, that pretty much covers any possible failure mode.
Systems fail that weren’t properly maintained, and yes even on Government boats.

Any leak in the HP supply side and it drains overboard from the locker, and leak on the LP side and the gas detector goes off, if any eye goes out, the thermocouple shut off gas flow.
The low pressure side is exceedingly low pressure so low it’s hard to believe it works. It’s usually less than 1/2 PSI.

I completely agree. I think all you say here is obviously true. I love sea chests. All I said was they don't ELIMINATE the problem. Certainly, they greatly reduce it. I'd love to have a boat set up like that.



Now if that sea chest is in a separate watertight compartment, now we're really talking. I could say "cooking with gas", but that would kind of undermine some other things I've been saying

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I almost died in the Arctic, however. That is no country for vegetarians! To this day I want to puke if I smell pasta cooking! My provisioning for that trip was a big fail despite my large freezer.

It failed due to lack of freezer space? Or just don’t like frozen food?
I’m no vegetarian, but back to the Army thing, there were initially a lot of freeze dried Vegetables, I assume canned is a no go?

I would also assume if you were in the cold for long, that the required calories would be hard to get?

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I almost died in the Arctic, however. That is no country for vegetarians! To this day I want to puke if I smell pasta cooking! My provisioning for that trip was a big fail despite my large freezer.

I'd like to hear about this also. Always something to learn. False assumption about reprovisioning?

Sorry about pasta. I thought pasta, rice, and beans were mainstays for vegetarians.

Do share.

[Dockhead]

It's an interesting conversation and thanks to all who are putting so much thought and time into it. I hope it doesn't bother anyone that I don't always agree. I think everyone is saying smart things and I'm learning as usual.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . I swear I got your point. Definitely systems point of view. The challenge is you have to go back and for the between 30,000 ft (systems) and 50 ft (implementation). For example, your clothes washer and your cooking are NOT in the same category. First and easiest is the current draw is lower for your clothes washer. At least as important is the duty cycle. The difference between running a couple of loads of laundry once a week is different from two or three meals a day, driving thermal cycling.

Well, sure, but if you look at the total power used or total power used at >1kW at a time, electric cooking will be a small percentage. Adding electrical cooking to a bunch of other high load stuff will have practically zero incremental effect on the risk. I HEAT with electricity; I may use 2kW or 3kW of electrical power continuously for days on end in cold weather. My washer dryer uses a ton of power, 2.5kW for long periods of time. Electric cooking would not be one of the most intensive uses.



This is a really important point. If you think that gas is even somewhat dangerous, then it is a significant safety advantage to get it off the boat without adding something else which increases risks.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . Again, we need to look at FMEA. In your case with reasonable redundancy I think you close the gap but you still have a number of single points of failure. However you are taking your specific situation and generalizing it to say that induction is always better than gas. . . .

I hasten to say that I never intended to say that. I think it's always SAFER, provided you are not drastically increasing electrical power usage and provided this is not a bigger load than others you have anyway. For the reasons stated above. But BETTER? No, I think that's an individual decision based on all kinds of objective and subjective things. I'm not selling induction cookers to anyone; just stating that I like them.


How suitable induction cooking is on a boat greatly depends on the electrical environment. Will be totally unsuitable for a lot of boats; would never have worked on my previous boat, off shore power.



There simply is no engineering basis for reaching that conclusion. Sometimes adding a completely independent system increases robustness and reliability. Your boat is already a system of systems, is it not? When you change the demands on a system it is not the same system anymore.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

I take exception to your statement that electricity only is simpler, safer, and has “less things to go wrong with it” than electricity plus gas. It simply isn’t. If you can provide a needed function in a simpler fashion you increase reliability. .

I'm not seeing that. But I suppose the reason for that is more likely that I don't understand something, than that you are wrong.



But really, how could it be otherwise? You have System X, with all its components, elements, risks, failure modes, etc. Then you have System Y, with its own stuff. How can you not reduce failures by completely eliminating System Y without changing System X in the slightest?

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . What to do if the inverter fails and the generator won’t start halfway between Azores and Bermuda? If you look at the ARC data generators and watermakers are the most likely to fail on significant passages. Inverters are not far behind especially with large loads. Inverter/chargers are more susceptible to failure than separate inverters and chargers. I’m working from memory here.

This is an important point. I have a spare inverter on board. And a spare battery charger. Smaller capacity than the main Victron charger/inverter but enough for critical functions.



On an electric-intensive boat inverter/chargers, which are the very nexus between AC and DC on board, are mission-critical. On a new-build boat I would have a couple of the Victron inverters and gang them, in a way to make it easy to switch over to one of them should the other go down.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . But you don’t carry spares. I’m glad you’re turning your attention to spares for your LPG system as I would not want you to go hungry. I do keep saying “at sea” but that concern also applies when well off the grid when parts and replacements have long shipping times.

Hey, I have at least a half tonne of spares on board. I really beefed up the spares inventory before going to the Arctic two years ago. I just don't have a spare solenoid or a spare regulator. A little oversight. I will fix that.


But since I have entirely redundant cooking systems -- complete gas system with two types of bottles, and Smecma 4-burner cooker and oven. PLUS two induction hobs. Plus full sized built in microwave/grill. There is very little chance of not being able to cook, no matter what goes wrong with whatever system.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . Some of this comes down to risk management. Risk management in engineering considers probability of occurrence AND impact of occurrence. High probability with low impact (failure to trim finger nails leads to a turned nail) Is different from low probability with high impact (sorting an inverter failure and shorting high current 24VDC through your body with obvious bad results).

So you raise risk of failure. Breaking the glass top of an induction hob may seem low probability but there are reasonable scenarios that lead to that – high impact.

I actually think this is a very good point, what concerns built-in gimballed induction hobs. I think even this is not such a low probability event. With the portable hobs this is not such a worry because I have backups, also they are small targets so less likely to be struck. A big expanse of glass built in induction hob top seems risky to me. I would not want that type of stove. I think you can get them with metal tops.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Yes. *grin* I prefer things I can get going again at sea even by expedients. Cheap to replace is great if I’m somewhere I can do so which leads to easy. Two week lead time might be a problem for some people. .

But cheap and easy to replace AND WITH THE REPLACEMENT IN SPARES covers all the bases. Two week lead time is a bitch for anything you really need. Even one week. I learned that years ago the hard way -- blew out a gray water pump diaphragm, an absolutely common Whale Gulper 220 at that. Not in the wilderness -- in Sweden, not far from Stockholm. I had a spare somewhere but I couldn't find it (another vital lesson). So just pop down to the chandlery and pick one up, right? Guess again. One week lead time. I ended up spending a whole day tearing the boat up and finally finding the spare. That was a hard lesson. I hate those cruising days lost on stuff like that -- those days are precious. My crew had unforgettable experiences exploring a new place while I rummaged through every locker


So it's been my motto ever since to have spares, spares, and more spares -- spares of everything which would hurt, if it didn't work. I have a spare for every single pump on board PLUS rebuild kits, complete spares for both toilets. Spare windlass motor. Spare autopilot hydraulic pump, spare hoses. Spare cutless bearing. Complete rebuild kit for my propeller. Spare shaft seal. Spare starters, pumps, injectors, injector lines, hoses, everythign for both diesel engines. Etc etc etc etc. Something breaks; you have the spare on board and can find it -- very often it's a quick and simple job which doesn't ruin the day. Something breaks and no spare -- very often it's a ton of wasted time trying to get the part, trying to jury rig around it, trying to live without whatever failed. Sometimes days of wasted time.


Also don't forget the well-known magical effect of spares -- whatever you have a spare for, won't break. Whatever you don't have a spare for -- will We were off grid for three months and 4000 miles in the Arctic, and the only thing that broke was the wind sensor, and that only on the last leg back to England. I was really pleased with that; the crew was amazed. I know of course that I was really lucky. On the other hand, was it a coincidence that this came after I spent months preparing the boat? Calls to mind Amundsen on luck. I'll take that kind of luck.


OK, that's officially thread drift.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . The problem need not be total to have an impact. I have a story that includes a failure cascade. On a Moody as it happens. We left Fort Lauderdale headed for Annapolis. Boat recently purchased fair amount of upgrades and service on everything. About a day out it became apparent the battery bank was not holding a charge. I carry a fair amount of kit so started diagnosis. It looked like two problems: the alternator wasn’t charging and the batteries (I recall eight 6VDC golf carts in series-parallel). A lot of isolation (which meant no power to the boat so hand-steering by crew to magnetic compass) and some swapping around and we got 450 Ah of discharged batteries back online (the batteries with dead cells had pulled down the whole bank). Started the generator and battery charger and we were running. Crew meeting and I said we’re going back to Ft Lauderdale. Crew asked why not go to Vero Beach, just a day further and make progress. No. We don’t know what else might fail and the vendor who did the work might be arm-twisted into meeting us on Sunday in Ft Lauderdale but not in Vero Beach. Six hours later the generator failed. We went on electrical rations and limped into Fort Lauderdale. Called the owner when I got a cell signal and his first question was “why not Vero?” Explained the logic and he accepted. TowboatUS shadowed us in and called the two bridges we needed opened for us (VHF pooped out from low voltage and we were navigating from my phone and with help from TowboatUS). Ended up as an open circuit in the alternator field coil and a bad sensor on the generator. Neither amenable to fixing at sea. Some very clear discussion with the vendor over the phone got us on and off the dock in six hours on a Sunday with three days lost. Owner met us in Norfolk to sail up the Chesapeake and went through the paperwork and experience with me and heard perspective from crew as well (I run full disclosure boats). We got to Annapolis and the owner learned his buddies who were going to sail with him to NJ had no-showed. His response was “Good. Can you come with me the rest of the way so I can learn what the crew learned?” We had a great trip. *grin* Point is that failure cascades happen, and more often than we would like. That’s why risk management and FMEA exist as engineering disciplines. .

A great, and educational story


I did actually also have, one time, a failure of BOTH generator AND alternator at the same time -- terrifying. And instructive. The alternator melted something on a long motoring crossing of the North Sea. OK, no big deal, we have the generator. We got into Dover and the crew left, leaving me and one non-sailor to get the rest of the way down the Channel to Cowes. Then soon after leaving Dover the generator shut down and couldn't be restarted. Oh, shirt. Anchored out near Eastbourne and spent a whole day trying to get it running again, as the batteries slowly ran down. Finally gave up and bugged out for Brighton and hooked up to shore power, with the batteries on fumes.



The generator was something stupid -- air leak in a fuel line I couldn't find that whole day, but in safety and with shore power in Brighton I managed to find and cure the pinhole leak in the fuel line. I had initially thought it was a fuel pump and wasted a ton of time chasing that phantom (I did have a spare fuel pump on board). If I had been further afield, I could have gotten a bit of power out of the second alternator, which is 12v, but I have a 12v inverter and a spare battery charger, so it could have been done. Certainly enough power to run autopilot and instruments and VHF.



Now I keep a complete spare alternator so that can't happen again. And I take better care of this one. Operator error was a factor in the alternator failure.



Before going to the Arctic I seriously thought about adding a third power source -- buying a suitcase gen and keeping it dry in spares. In the end didn't do it. But that far way from civilization you would be truly stuffed without electricity. Whether or not you cook with it.

[Auspicious]

Jeepers. I really enjoy talking things over with you.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, sure, but if you look at the total power used or total power used at >1kW at a time, electric cooking will be a small percentage. Adding electrical cooking to a bunch of other high load stuff will have practically zero incremental effect on the risk. I HEAT with electricity; I may use 2kW or 3kW of electrical power continuously for days on end in cold weather. My washer dryer uses a ton of power, 2.5kW for long periods of time. Electric cooking would not be one of the most intensive uses.

Another factor that makes you an outlier. I thought you had a diesel heater. Why use electricity to heat? Also most people with washer/dryers (the ubiquitous Splendide) don’t use the dryer unless plugged into shore power. The spin the laundry and hang it, indoors with fans going if need be. You really are a one-off.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I'm not seeing that. But I suppose the reason for that is more likely that I don't understand something, than that you are wrong.

Or there is other context we don’t see? Or I could be wrong. I thought so once, but I was mistaken. *grin* Seriously, I’m confident on the merits based on what I know but more is being exposed.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

On an electric-intensive boat inverter/chargers, which are the very nexus between AC and DC on board, are mission-critical. On a new-build boat I would have a couple of the Victron inverters and gang them, in a way to make it easy to switch over to one of them should the other go down.

I would argue against that. Definitely ganged inverters: A on odd days, B on even days, both for big loads. Hot spares are much better than those squirreled away that may not work when needed. If you run a big battery charger (or two medium sized ones) that are good for 100VAC to 250VAC 50/60Hz you can always charge the batteries and run the boat off inverters. Add Webasto 50/60Hz A/C and you have a real world boat.

You can’t do that with inverter/chargers.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I actually think this is a very good point, what concerns built-in gimballed induction hobs. I think even this is not such a low probability event. With the portable hobs this is not such a worry because I have backups, also they are small targets so less likely to be struck. A big expanse of glass built in induction hob top seems risky to me. I would not want that type of stove. I think you can get them with metal tops.

Remember to sort out pot holders.

Without quoting you – you carry a lot of spares. Vacuum-packed with desiccant packs? I assume by now you have a location index. *grin* On that note I have a lot of over-specced pumps. The fresh water pressure pump, the shower sump pump, two bilge pumps, and the washdown pump are all the same make and model pump. So I carry ONE spare pump I’m covered, and I can move the shower sump to something else I need more if necessary.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

the only thing that broke was the wind sensor, and that only on the last leg back to England.

Ah. One of the few advantages of being male. We don’t actually lose our hair. It just moves around to inconvenient places. The hair growing out of our ears makes a dandy wind indicator. Wiring that into autopilot vane mode is an exercise left to the student. *grin*

[DanCan]

Wow, I must confess, this thread has become amazingly interesting between Dockhead, Auspicious and 64pilot. I really appreciate reading good comments! To my side of the brain Auspicious makes great deal of sense, but all of you guys are making this thread very rich in ideas. Kudos!

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by DanCan

Wow, I must confess, this thread has become amazingly interesting between Dockhead, Auspicious and 64pilot. I really appreciate reading good comments! To my side of the brain Auspicious makes great deal of sense, but all of you guys are making this thread very rich in ideas. Kudos!

Thank you Dan. At the risk of a lack of humility when people like us disagree there is value in the discussion. I'd also like to think that our civility, mutual respect, and indeed friendship shed some hope for the future of humanity. *grin*

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . Another factor that makes you an outlier. I thought you had a diesel heater. Why use electricity to heat? Also most people with washer/dryers (the ubiquitous Splendide) don’t use the dryer unless plugged into shore power. The spin the laundry and hang it, indoors with fans going if need be. You really are a one-off.

It's a function of latitude. If I hung my laundry to dry it would come out green with mold. The dryer is 100x more valuable than the washer. It's running as I write this. I run the dryer off shore power, off generator, off inverter with the engine running. It needs 2.3kW. I use it an average of 4 or 5 hours a week even when I am alone on board.


Electricity to heat is to reduce hours on the Eberspacher. It's also cheaper considering the hourly maintenance/depreciation of the Eberspacher. Especially in Finland, which with abundant nuclear and hydro power has the cheapest electricity in Europe. Or in Cowes where my shore power is unmetered

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . I would argue against that. Definitely ganged inverters: A on odd days, B on even days, both for big loads. Hot spares are much better than those squirreled away that may not work when needed. If you run a big battery charger (or two medium sized ones) that are good for 100VAC to 250VAC 50/60Hz you can always charge the batteries and run the boat off inverters. Add Webasto 50/60Hz A/C and you have a real world boat.

Strongly agree with the underlined.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

You can’t do that with inverter/chargers.

Sure you can; just add the odd-powered battery charger. Inverter/charger on home voltage; battery charger alone on strange voltage.


Inverter/charger has huge advantages over separate, particularly the brilliant power boost function. Really important when dealing with very skinny shore power connections, like the infamous French 6 amp plugs.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Without quoting you – you carry a lot of spares. Vacuum-packed with desiccant packs? I assume by now you have a location index.

Yes, and yes. I have the vacuum packer; I have the case of desiccant packs. This is absolutely worthwhile. Location index, and inventory, is essential with this volume of spares. I learned that the hard way.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . On that note I have a lot of over-specced pumps. The fresh water pressure pump, the shower sump pump, two bilge pumps, and the washdown pump are all the same make and model pump. So I carry ONE spare pump I’m covered, and I can move the shower sump to something else I need more if necessary.

What pump is that? This is awesome commonality, which greatly simplifies spares. Do tell.



I can't brag about that degree of commonality. On the contrary, I have on board a plethora of different incompatible pumps:


2x Whale Gulper 220 gray water pumps
1x Jabsco macerator pump for pumping out the black water tank
1x Johnson diaphragm washdown pump guerilla converted to a fresh water pump.
1x manual Whale die cast aluminum bilge pump (useless piece of junk)

2x jumbo Rule 3700 centrifugal bilge pumps with Ultima Junior float switches

2x Whale Supersub maintenance bilge pumps
1x 3kW 230v Wilo cast iron 72,000 l/h macerating trash pump/dewatering pump/fire pump with folding 3" fire hose


Every single bilge pump, and both of the gray water pumps, has its own separate outlet. Some of the bilge pumps are hot spares to each other, but I have a spare for every single one of them except for the dewatering pump. It's a ton of spare pumps, expense, and storage space.



If I could introduce some great commonality into this mess, I would be really happy. Do tell about your universal pump.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

I'd like to hear about this also. Always something to learn. False assumption about reprovisioning?

Sorry about pasta. I thought pasta, rice, and beans were mainstays for vegetarians.

Do share.

So we're talking about diets now?

I have had a lot of unexpected adventures with that over the last 4 years.

Surprise #1: Counterintuitively, when you give up meat, and even more, when you give up dairy, you end up with a hugely expanded variety of taste sensations, not narrowed. Meat dominates omnivore diets, and meat is monotonous. Everything which is not meat is much more complex with much more variety. I never enjoyed eating so much since I gave up meat and dairy.

Surprise #2: Not everything which is vegetarian, is healthy. Suddenly you realize that white starchy things are disgusting. Pasta, potatoes, rice. Like eating sugar. Empty calories.

I won't go into losing 20 pounds, cholestoral plummeted to ideal levels, blood pressure ideal, body bursting with energy, and just feeling -- clean. Diet is much more significant, than you might think, to how you feel.


We left the Orkney Islands bound North and North, after a bulk provisioning with delivery from Tesco, with a ton of pasta and rice and other stuff which keeps well. I still have some of that crap on board. I have a big freezer and we stuffed it with vegetables. We were 5, 3 of us anyway vegetarians, and the other two vegetarian-curious, so no one objected that there was almost no meat on board.



But you can't live for a whole summer on one freezer full of vegetables. We ended up eating pasta and canned tomatoes again and again and again :barf:. . . The alternative would have been frozen seal blubber or polar bear meat from the shop in Ittoqqortoormiit . . . pass . . . So we ate pasta :barf: It was the worst thing about the best trip and best summer of my life, the cruise of a lifetime.



We did have beans, which are great. But mostly lentils. We quickly ran out of those red kidney beans which are so fabulous, so meaty, more protein than beef, tastier than the tastiest filet mignon . . . and beans need some fresh celery and leeks and other fresh vegetables, to be their best.



I will do it differently next time Live and learn.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by DanCan

Wow, I must confess, this thread has become amazingly interesting between Dockhead, Auspicious and 64pilot. I really appreciate reading good comments! To my side of the brain Auspicious makes great deal of sense, but all of you guys are making this thread very rich in ideas. Kudos!

Indeed, also makes me very thankful for having a very simple boat.

The only time we really ran into trouble was using Camping Gaz, a French Butane tank system and expensive. The supplier to Southern UK ran into problems one August, height of the holiday season. No Gaz for caravans, camping, BBQs and boats including us. Finally found one of the last tiny cylinders in the county and just made it home. Lesson learnt and we bought the slow cooker and an electric kettle, oh and switched to Calor a UK firm with better distribution networks and local filling stations.