Gimbled stove: which orientation

[RajaNagaLaut]

We're completely refitting the galley & planning to install a gimbled stove.

Any suggestions on the best orientation: length or breadth - we have space for either orientation, since we're still at the cabinetry-planning stages

[skipmac]

The gimble should be fore and aft IE lengthwise, so the stove will swing as the boat rolls.

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by skipmac

...so the stove will swing as the boat rolls.

Also good to install gimbal locks so the stove can be fixed in several positions. A barrel bolt works.

[Jman]

Originally Posted by RajaNagaLaut

We're completely refitting the galley & planning to install a gimbled stove.

Any suggestions on the best orientation: length or breadth - we have space for either orientation, since we're still at the cabinetry-planning stages

I presume you are talking a single axis gimbal. In which case it should roll with heel. You will spend plenty of time on one tack or the other, pitching can be countered with clamps, and when excessive, cooking will have to be delayed.


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[RajaNagaLaut]

Originally Posted by Jman

I presume you are talking a single axis gimbal. In which case it should roll with heel. You will spend plenty of time on one tack or the other, pitching can be countered with clamps, and when excessive, cooking will have to be delayed.
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Actually I'm thinking of a gimbal that swings both ways ... as it were!

[Hudson Force]

Our stove, that is designed to swing on one axis, is installed so that it remains level with the roll of the boat from port to starboard. We usually have far less action fore and aft in our galley. I must admit that when we are in active conditions we very rarely use our stove, but tend to forage on cheese, crackers, and cold cuts. We don't even prepare hot coffee or tea when things are sloppy and we usually have a lock engaged on our gimble!

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Hudson Force

we usually have a lock engaged on our gimble!

Yes, if the wife is below, watching that thing swing back and forth makes her sick, as does hanging clothes etc.
So, if the Wx is bad, I have her in the cockpit, and I do what little food prep there is, but we usually don't have much of an appetite then anyway.

[RajaNagaLaut]

Does anyone have.... or recommend a dual axis gimble?

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by RajaNagaLaut

Does anyone have.... or recommend a dual axis gimble?

Come on! A Sea-Swing stove can possibly be used in more violent conditions.

Originally Posted by Hudson Force

...We don't even prepare hot coffee or tea when things are sloppy...

A thermos of hot water is handy during these conditions, so you can at least have hot instant soup, cup of noodles, or a hot drink.

[roverhi]

Originally Posted by RajaNagaLaut

Does anyone have.... or recommend a dual axis gimble?

How are you going to do a dual axis gimble?? Allowing for the swing of the stove will take up a lot of space for one thing. Forces fore and aft aren't bad and are easily handled by a taller pot and clamps. If it's bad enough that fiddles don't hold the pot and/or the contents slop out, you've got more problems than a hot meal. A SeaSwing stove, which does have a two axis gamble, is what you need when it gets really rough. Have made a passage to Hawaii with just a SeaSwing stove but then I'm not a gourmet cook. Of course, unless the cook is a gymnast thats a circus jugular, you won't be doing any gourmet cooking when it gets really rough. That's the time to break out the canned chili. Yes, i've got a cast iron stomach.

[TrentePieds]

If you're gonna do serious cooking on a gimballed stove in roughish weather you'd better have yourself gimballed along with it :-)

Pot clamps on the fiddles, and lids on the pots and the pots never more than half full are the requirements for being able to make something hot while underway.

TrentePieds

[roland stockham]

Unless either the stove is very large and heavy or a single burner a dual axis may be very prone to capsize when you put a pan on one ring, especially in bad weather when you want a heavy stew pot with a clamp on lid. If you really want an 'all weather' look at the hanging one made for high altitude climbing, you can even use them in the liferaft!

[UNCIVILIZED]

In the same sized cutout which will handle a 2-4 burner stove with oven, you can mount 3+ dual-axis gimballed, Sea Swing type stoves. AKA backpacking stoves, which take screw in gas cannisters from underneath, or have small fuel tanks built in underneath of their burners.

Albeit, then you're out of an oven & or broiler. So such setups are typically only popular on crewed racing boats, where meals are simple, & you've got a fair sized crew to feed.
But such stoves seem to be very viable, even when it's stupid rough. As that type of design is the norm on most of the offshore & RTW (round the world) racing boats.

One alternative to the "traditionally" mounted gimballed stove. Is to build your galley so that the stove is mounted such that the oven door opens co-axially with the boat's fore & aft line. And then gimball the stove on it's backside. If you really even need to bother to gimball it at all, with it mounted thusly.

A touted perk of such a setup, is that the cook is never working directly uphill, or downhill, of a boiling pot. So that there's much less chance of having Neptune "launch" your simmering dinner, all over the chef. So it's something of a safety feature.
Though, when at sea, it's always wise to wear your foulie bibs, or a waterproof, chest to knee apron, to protect against such things, just in case.

Annie Hill, who wrote Voyaging on a Small Income designed their galley thusly, so that the long axis of their stove ran athwartships. And they didn't even bother with gimballs for it, just slightly deeper pots than most use.
Evidently, it worked, given that they cruised for tens of thousands of miles with said setup. Their boat's name was Badger, & you can see the galley (& interior) layout here http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2MDbzwUtC4...arrt-large.gif

[TrentePieds]

I think it's a fallacy that a gimballed stove can do you any good. You find them only in yachts. In small commercial vessels - where cookie has no choice but to work while underway - stoves are fixed. For good reason. Gimballed stoves are hazards to cookie and to anyone that happens by.

A favorite around here is the Dickinson diesel fueled stove, and while it has its quirks, it's a wonderful device. And FIXED in place. It has excellent fiddles to take the pot clamps. Recall what I said about pots never to be filled more than half full. As someone else said, tall and narrow is the ticket.

To try to adapt a boat to accommodate the cooking techniques you'd use ashore is, IMO, to get your butt before your tea kettle. What's required is that you adapt your cooking techniques to the ineluctable fact that boats roll. One way, among many, of doing that is to use a pressure cooker for a pot just because it has a locking lid. Don't put the bob-weight on to pressure it. Just treasure and use the locking lid, place the pressure cooker in the pot clamps on the fixed, NON-GIMBALLED stove and Bob's yer uncle.

What goes in the pot had better be prepared before you start to roll. There is no way anybody can do a decent mise en place in a toy ship rolling 15 degrees

TrentePieds

[SaltyMetals]

Come on guys. If RajaNagaLaut has a 30m boat (presumably mono-hull) then the pitching is likely to be irrelevant. All he has to worry about is the heel on one tack or the other. Hence swinging axis for the gimbal to be fore & aft. An additional gimbal in the other direction would seem crazy bec he is only likely to need it in F8-9 at which point who on earth would be cooking meals?