Excuse for the late answer, I must have missed your question.
Since see You are still planning a trip here my two cents of wood wisdom. ( Copied from a earlier forum answer )
I can not recommend the use of a wood burning stove. Using it, getting the wood, storing the wood is something a lot more difficult and time consuming then turning the thermostat. Even knowing which wood is good ( no smoke, few ash, no insects ) and where to get it without
work is a science that took me years to perfect. In fact, your wintering spot depends on the availability of fuel wood.
In the French canals we burned fallen branches of the famous plane trees, In Reggio Calabria we burned transport pallets ( smoke, low caloric wood and often treated with chemicals ) and in
Holland I burned beech ( had to buy ). In
Turkey and
Greece we burn wood from the most common shrub ( sorry, cant find the name ) The dog´s paw thick branches never have insects in it, burn when wet, are heavier than
water and burn without smoke with a ferocity that can be dangerous. Collecting the wood is easy. We make a walk on a hillside just yards from the beach and collect the stuff. No sawing ( not possible except with a
steel hacksaw ) I just hit a branch against a rock and stove ready pieces snap of. The stuff is harder than iron wood, breaks like glass. I have used the same wood to replace
bronze bushing in machinery. ( Have a lathe on board )
If I want to produce smoke ( have my reasons ) I throw a piece of root from an other shrub into the fire. That wood produces a faint white smoke that smells heavenly.
Pine is bad. Smoke and soot. No good. Only good if you have a neighbour who has one of those webasopachers fuming up your
cockpit and gassing you to death with the diesel smoke fumes.
We also have a Refleks diesel burning stove on board. No
noise, uses no electricity, is extremely reliable and easy to operate. Turn the thermostat. Fool proof. We have not used the Reflex since year 2000. Reason : fuel has to be bought, wood is free.
It is a way of life. Even now we both receive a pension and the
money is abundant.... we both like the way the wood burning stove regulates our lives. It is a slow way of living, just like sailing.
We winter in an area where can find wood easily. Once a year I have a friend over in January.
He is a
chef and can only take free in winter. He stays in a
hotel, we moor on the town quay. No wood to find there so while the
Chef likes cooking three course
meals on our wood stove ( and as a back up on the two burner gas hob ) I need lots of wood.
I carry two bags in the
bowsprit net, and a big one in the
cockpit. Is enough for two weeks extensive cooking and heating.
Your wood burning stove looks very good, really simple. Driftwood can be found everywhere but is not half as good as the shrub we use. Driftwood contains
salt, can be very aggressive when burnt.
Our first flue was brass, burning
salt in the driftwood burnt holes into the pipe. Something chemical.
As to your question about sun and solar. We have 170 watt
panels. Even with orientating them the generated power is not enough during Nov. Dec and Jan. Few daylight hours, low standing sun blocked by surrounding hills. Clouds. So we have during our winter anchoring two wind generators out. One is a bought model standing on the second
mast, the other one is a
DIY low windage gen.
The last one delivers roughly 4 times the power of the Aerogen 4. And that with low wind speeds.
To generate that much power it has a 1, 75m two bladed prop. ( two blades for stowing )
It takes about 5 minutes to take the big
generator away ( He lives on the starboard bow ) for sailing.
As soon as spring is there I take also the front gen
mast away, takes half an hour.
We consume little power. A fridge ( 24 AH/ day ) and a big
laptop ( 1AH ) and some
led lights,
water pump. Some phones.
Re: Wintering on the hook
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