Dry Ice

[hrsail920]

Anyone use dry ice, advantages, etc?

[Tellie]

When I had my first 21' sailboat many moons ago I always used dry ice in a cheap 48 quart cooler. But I only was a weekend or so sailor back then. The advantages on a small boat with little power is clear. With the new technology in coolers such as the "Yeti" I would suppose it makes even more sense. But for long distance cruising I would think it would be tough if not near impossible to keep re-supplying dry Ice as you travel.

www.HaldenMarineService.com

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by hrsail920

Anyone use dry ice, advantages, etc?

Dry ice keeps things frozen, water ice keeps things cool(refrigerated). Dry Ice releases CO2 which is heavier than air and can accumulate below decks, especially in a buttoned up boat. It can become toxic, but will trigger the feeling of not getting enough air well before it becomes life threatening. I have used dry ice before but I always kept the cooler on deck. If your "ice box" has a way to drain the CO2 overboard such as a meltwater drain that goes overboard and not into the bilge It should not be a problem. As Tellie says, it's good for short trips, but is difficult to obtain for long term cruising. I had an 8lb block in a large "5 day"cooler covered with water ice and it was 7 days before the water ice began to melt. The combo lasted about 12 days. It might have gone a bit longer if I had used block water ice instead of cubes. Everything in the cooler was frozen rock hard until the dry ice had disappeared. I made the mistake of putting a couple of sodas in the cooler to chill them quickly and waited too long to pull them out. They froze solid and split open in just a little over an hour.

[markwesti]

We used to use it . We don't have a reefer , but our "box" has a well in it that will accept a 50 lb. block of ice and we just put cubed ice and our stuff on top of it . It's amazing how long the block will last if you can keep cubed ice on it . A thing that really helps us out is a separate ice chest (Igloo) to put our frozen stuff in , and we only open that one up once or twice a day . That one we use dry ice in some times some times we just put in a block . One day we will get that "Yeti".

[donradcliffe]

We used to use dry ice in a styrofoam cooler on the transpac race. Things would stay hard frozen for about a week. We would take the day's casserole out of the dry ice and use it in another cooler to cool down the beer as it thawed. No worries at all about leaving it below decks--diffusion will clear out the trickle of CO2 way before it becomes toxic.

[belizesailor]

Like others I've used it on runs up to about 1 week. Works fine if used properly, but of course comes with availabilitly and safety issues.

[hrsail920]

Thank you all for input.
Will give it a shot.