I still go for opinions being the most useless thing that all boaters have, where people are unwilling to examine them.
Take one above that thought an
inverter was the most useless thing aboard. Not so at all, IME. We used ours to
power the
electric coffee grinder after the manual one took a salty wave and rusted up. Jim has had his morning coffees from that for the last about 27 yrs. The
inverter is good. It also runs our
computers and all 110 powered tools. Remember, we are in a foreign land, and their electricity is delivered differently to American. It powers a mosquito repellent, too, countless
battery chargers: cameras, drill motors, mobile
phone,
computers, so IPod. On and on.
Water heater is good; ours is tankless.
It's been mentioned above, but the barometer is very useful. When it drops fast and a lot, you know something bad is coming, and may be worsening faster than your wx
forecast predicted, hence will be more powerful when it strikes. We have two.
Oil lamp: we have a
trawler lamp that gives a nice golden glow below decks and emits a bit of heat (and
water vapor), but we also use it to take the chill off on a cold morning.
I might add that those who live where the water temp. is about 58 deg. F. don't know how pleasant the
bilge temp. fresh water
shower on the afterdeck can be after a long snorkeling expedition if you swim where the water temp is 75 to 80.
Ann