This is our refrigeration page. Have you found
the ideal means of keeping food cool aboard? Is there always ice on hand
when you fancy a cold drink? Have you invested vast amounts in
refrigeration, only to find yourself disappointed?
Tell us all about it!
The Skipper has a tale to tell...
My first experience of refrigeration on board a boat was in
1983, when I purchased a Moody 40' which a racing friend of mine called "a caravan with a pole out the
top".
After my experiences with the previous boat, Rebecca, a
gaff-rigged cutter, circa
1890, the Moody was light relief and was much loved, and enjoyed, for a good few
years.
I digress, as they say...
Having filled the fridge with provisions for the first time, I removed the ice
tray from the so-called freezing compartment...there was only enough space
in it for eight ice-cubes. "Oh well", I said to myself, "fill it
up anyway". Six long hours later, the watery cubes were, just about,
fit to use.
I took to buying ice ashore as it was needed and suffered the excuse for a fridge
although it should never have been billed as such. Sadly (no! I mean
it!) the time came to wave goodbye to the Moody and a Formosa 51 sailed into my
life.
This one, my witty friend insisted on calling "the Taiwan
take-away". Yes, I know. With friends like that I have no need of
enemies.
Although I had bought her in the excruciatingly hot Kusadasi, in Turkey,
and enjoyed plenty of cold beers whilst surveying the vessel, the one thing I seemed to have
failed to take any notice of was the fridge-freezer system.
The day came to take my new acquisition to the Balearics
and, somewhere off the Island of Samos, I discovered that the incredible production of ice and the freezer that was so
efficient,
keeping its contents as hard as marble, were, in fact, driven by two small
12-volt Adler
Barbour cooling systems. A more efficient system I had never seen.
Well, as the saying goes, all good things come to an end
and, eventually, the Formosa was replaced by a one-off schooner
which was 68' long at the time and now sports an extra four feet of
bowsprit, for which reason marinas insist that she is a 72' boat and I
have given up arguing.
Her large chest freezer runs on 220volts and, when it kicks in, the generator certainly loses a few revs to
accommodate the start-up load. The 27-year-old system works on the 'cold sea water comes in and
warm sea water goes out' principle and, somehow, the spin-off is 150 kilos of
solid frozen food.
Being a fully paid up member of the "If it ain't
broken don't fix it" school of sailors, I have never been tempted to
'service' the freezer and, as a result, it has run non-stop (excepting
during haul-outs) for 11 years without, (Aaargh! Touch wood... I'm tempting
Providence here) needing so much as a fitting tightened.
If, however (and God forbid) anything did stop it going, I would be calling on Messrs Adler
Barbour...unless
you have a better suggestion."
We'd love to hear from you, whether your
refrigeration is a source of joy or despair. Is yours a standard system or
an especially hand-built one? Do you have an ingenious way of
maximising the refrigeration you have aboard, or tips on materials for
insulation? Anything you care to tell us, we're all ears, or should that
be eyes? E-mail us on this, or any, topic!
In the meantime, you may like to warm up a bit with a
sprint through our In-Quiz-ition
No.1, in the Quizzicles pages: ten questions with links to the
answers, or perhaps you'd rather be Soaking
Up The Rays...
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