Induction vs Gas Cooking

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

For windlasses, many boat manufacturer's now put an interlock between the engine and the windlass controls to attempt to make sure the user doesn't overload both the windlass and the (LA) batteries.

I've seen this a number of times. It is a stunningly bad idea. It means if you lose the engine motoring through an inlet getting the anchor down becomes a lot more time consuming - perhaps too long. I advocate improved operator training and bypassing the interlock.

[BlackHeron]

Originally Posted by slug

Some folks actually sail

After a hard week of so of sailing ....garbage needs to be emptied, boat washed, tanks filled , batteries charged , hot water heated , provisions replenished , laundry done and a good nights sleep off watch

Tied to the dock is the best way to accomplish this

Dunno, about that, we do about 5-6k/year, usually moving nearly every day for more than half of the time, staying a few weeks up in Canada or far north in the summer and down south in the Florida Keys for a rest before turning around and migrating again the other way.

You say the best way to get stuff done or get a good night's sleep is tied to a dock? That hasn't been our experience doing this every day for a couple of years.. We can get water at the fuel dock while we pump out when inland, or dinghy in water using jerry cans in a couple of easy trips. Same for groceries and other supplies. Everything comes and goes on the dinghy most of the time. We do laundry on the boat with a wringer and bucket-based system instead of plugging a jar of quarters into a machine at some filthy laundromat.

There are some things that absolutely can't be done on the hook, or just too hard to be worth it. But those are few and far between. We spend a few weeks each year died up, bit can go 6 months at a time not.

Blowing 2 days operating budget for one night's stay at a marina isn't our way. We retired at 50 while we were still young enough to enjoy cruising and not having to stop and go back to work to refill the cruising kitty. Spending $75-100 or more at a marina isn't sustainable unless you spent your whole life saving up to cruise in your late 60's or 70's, or have a trust fund or damn lucky building a profitable business that you sold. How much are those lost decades of your life being a wage slave worth? Yeah, I'd rather stay in the hook at $50/day budget and retire at 50...

As for getting a good night's sleep, we sleep like babies on the hook. Not much fear or dread there as so many seem to suffer. Once you do it for six months straight you feel more secure about your gear and your skills. I fear a fire at a marina or someone who can't dock well hitting us or getting a wake bashing us against the docknat marinas nxkise by to busy channels. Or just the common annoyances like listening to couples fight or drunks yammering, or their crap music, or kids crying and everpresent annoying yapping dogs. Or smelling their nasty cigarettes and cigars. Don't like being packed into crowded floating trailer parks...

I wonder how many people who post their opinions on sites like this are actually out doing real cruising, have actual experience cruising on the hook more than a few short days or weeks at a time, and not just marina-hopping. How many people have actually even cut the lines at all yet or even own a boat, or are just wannabes repeating what other people have posted in online forums or seen on YouTube. In our experience real-life cruising differs a whole lot from what is seen in YouTube, or folks in threads like this say.

We never see any of these YouTube Stars out on the hook.
Perhaps they are all in the marina scrubbing the deck so it looks perfect on video when they film their next big offshore adventure, showing us all how it is supposed to be done...

[Dsanduril]

We currently have a LA bank and we frequently haul the anchor up and depart under sail without firing up the engine. Does it strain the batteries? Probably. I prefer that to starting up and running the engine for 5 or 10 minutes, that's a much more expensive maintenance proposition in the long run. I don't understand the interlock myself, but have seen it on a number of OP's boats.

[slug]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

Dunno, about that, we do about 5-6k/year, usually moving nearly every day for more than half of the time, staying a few weeks up in Canada or far north in the summer and down south in the Florida Keys for a rest before turning around and migrating again the other way.

You say the best way to get stuff done or get a good night's sleep is tied to a dock? That hasn't been our experience doing this every day for a couple of years.. We can get water at the fuel dock while we pump out when inland, or dinghy in water using jerry cans in a couple of easy trips. Same for groceries and other supplies. Everything comes and goes on the dinghy most of the time. We do laundry on the boat with a wringer and bucket-based system instead of plugging a jar of quarters into a machine at some filthy laundromat.

There are some things that absolutely can't be done on the hook, or just too hard to be worth it. But those are few and far between. We spend a few weeks each year died up, bit can go 6 months at a time not.

Blowing 2 days operating budget for one night's stay at a marina isn't our way. We retired at 50 while we were still young enough to enjoy cruising and not having to stop and go back to work to refill the cruising kitty. Spending $75-100 or more at a marina isn't sustainable unless you spent your whole life saving up to cruise in your late 60's or 70's, or have a trust fund or damn lucky building a profitable business that you sold. How much are those lost decades of your life being a wage slave worth? Yeah, I'd rather stay in the hook at $50/day budget and retire at 50...

As for getting a good night's sleep, we sleep like babies on the hook. Not much fear or dread there as so many seem to suffer. Once you do it for six months straight you feel more secure about your gear and your skills. I fear a fire at a marina or someone who can't dock well hitting us or getting a wake bashing us against the docknat marinas nxkise by to busy channels. Or just the common annoyances like listening to couples fight or drunks yammering, or their crap music, or kids crying and everpresent annoying yapping dogs. Or smelling their nasty cigarettes and cigars. Don't like being packed into crowded floating trailer parks...

I wonder how many people who post their opinions on sites like this are actually out doing real cruising, have actual experience cruising on the hook more than a few short days or weeks at a time, and not just marina-hopping. How many people have actually even cut the lines at all yet or even own a boat, or are just wannabes repeating what other people have posted in online forums or seen on YouTube. In our experience real-life cruising differs a whole lot from what is seen in YouTube, or folks in threads like this say.

We never see any of these YouTube Stars out on the hook.
Perhaps they are all in the marina scrubbing the deck so it looks perfect on video when they film their next big offshore adventure, showing us all how it is supposed to be done...

so you’re standing watch 24/7 for weeks on end ?

Do you actually ever get off the boat or are you under permanent quarantine ?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Let’s see. 1200W hob running about 800W so as not to overload the inverter. 220VAC to the hob. 12VDC battery bank. 95% efficiency in the inverter. Assume you run your FLAs between 50% and 80% SOC like most cruisers. That means if your batteries are at 80% you have 40 minutes of cook time to draw down your batteries to 50% IF YOU DON’T USE ANY OTHER ELECTRICAL POWER AT ALL. Then you have to put that energy back in. Power level might be lower for curries than the others. Lots more stew time.

That's not how induction works. Just because the hob is set on 800w doesn't mean it is drawing 800w continuously. It cycles on and off to maintain the set temperature; the wattage setting on the hob is the maximum, not continuous power. The duty cycle can be as little as 1% (one of the fantastic things about it from a control point of view).



With a lead-acid bank, I would not make a regular practice of cooking a whole meal on batteries, although I have done it in a pinch. A KillOWatt would say how much power exactly is used in this process, but I think it's generally a lot less than what you calculated. It depends on the meal, of course. My hob is 2000 watts, with 800 and 1200 watt settings. It will blow out 2000 watts (and no problem for me Victron inverter) only when maximum heating something -- like boiling a pot of something from cold. Frying or simmering the power goes down to 1200 or 800 and then cycles on and off to maintain the set temp. It is remarkably much more efficient than normal resistance electrical heating, like a few x, and much faster when heating something intensely, than gas -- like many x -- in many cases a few tens of seconds vs minutes. A frying pan with oil gets up to fry temp from cold in like 10 seconds. It's amazing. So from a power consumption point of view, I can cook omlets for 5 people and it hardly moves the needle on the Smartgauge. I guess less than 5% of capacity (I have 450ah * 24v).


But in general, I agree it's not something you would REGULARLY do on battery power unless you have a large lithium bank, and if you don't have an appropriate power source, then induction cooking won't be for you. I think we all agreed about that.


I generally use the gas rather than induction (IF the gas is working ) when at sea or off grid on battery power. HOWEVER, sometimes I use gas for bulk heating, like boiling a pot of water or soup or something, although I hate that gas is much slower for that. And then switch to induction for something requiring fine control or quick heating -- like frying, or simmering. Gas and induction work really well in combination. But unfortunately you are stuck with the extra system, and extra risk, which is why I will ditch gas on my next boat.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . Because I don’t agree that is what is happening. When someone says something that does not pass engineering muster (like “induction is simpler” or “induction is safer”) I push back. There are lots of places where different strokes applies. Not here. If you want induction because you want it that’s fine, but you should be well aware of the implications and the risks you are taking. Most importantly misinformed opinion should not be presented as fact. . .

We've been round the houses on this already, but I'm still finding this to be fundamentally illogical. If you remove one risk, however big or small that risk is, without adding a new one, then what you've done is safer. How in the world could it be otherwise? What am I missing? Since gas on board is a non-trivial risk (the most modest thing you can say), then the difference in safety might be substantial.


In terms of reliability, you also win, ipso facto, PROVIDED you are using the electrical system for multiple other things. Gas system goes down -- it may be simple to fix, but you are fixing it ONLY for the sake of cooking. Cooking alone has resulted in that repair being necessary. It is a marginal additional repair. Electric system breaks, and you are fixing that no matter what -- you are required making that repair whether or not you are cooking with it. It is not a marginal additional repair. Therefore, you have fewer repairs total with electric only. You have only one system to repair, versus two, and eliminating one source of failures and repairs does not increase the failures and repairs of the other system. Logically, it cannot be otherwise, UNLESS only the act of cooking itself breaks the electrical system, but that cannot be if cooking is just one of multiple high current loads. If it breaks while you're using the hob it would have broken anyway while you're using the fan heater.


Right? If not, then what am I missing?



None of this says anyone OUGHT to be using induction -- it's totally a matter of personal perference, taste, individual circumstances with power, etc etc etc. I'm not selling them. On my boat, induction does not add either safety or reliability because I still have gas anyway. Other than by being a redundant way to cook. I have it, at this point, purely because I love cooking on it. YMMV!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

We currently have a LA bank and we frequently haul the anchor up and depart under sail without firing up the engine. Does it strain the batteries? Probably. I prefer that to starting up and running the engine for 5 or 10 minutes, that's a much more expensive maintenance proposition in the long run. I don't understand the interlock myself, but have seen it on a number of OP's boats.

I guess it depends on the load in relation to the bank size, and how big the alternator is. I can't imagine it makes much difference to the batteries in most cases.


In any case, I find those interlocks which prevent you from using the windlass except with the engine running to be diabolical. Actually unsafe. I disabled mine.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

I've seen this a number of times. It is a stunningly bad idea. It means if you lose the engine motoring through an inlet getting the anchor down becomes a lot more time consuming - perhaps too long. I advocate improved operator training and bypassing the interlock.

I totally agree with this. What genius dreamed up the idea of this interlock?


On some boats, gravity-dropping the anchor is quick and easy, but on mine it's a faff, and I have to fetch a winch handle.

But it's not only dropping the anchor which you might have to do in an emergency -- you might also need to raise it.

I bypassed mine.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

You say the best way to get stuff done or get a good night's sleep is tied to a dock? That hasn't been our experience doing this every day for a couple of years.

I like your attitude.

Do you remember where you were last weekend? Sat/Sun/Mon I moved a boat from New Bern NC to Solomons MD - 2-1/2 days on the ICW to Norfolk and half a day on the Bay. I was below a lot for nav/weather/cooking/mucking about with crew on watch. I certainly would have noticed a Rasmus if we passed while I was on deck. Boat is a Freedom 40 named Caramba (being renamed Serenity).

I'm mostly an offshore guy but this trip the ICW made more sense. 90 mile days are really in reach, but that isn't cruising is it?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

. . . I wonder how many people who post their opinions on sites like this are actually out doing real cruising, have actual experience cruising on the hook more than a few short days or weeks at a time, and not just marina-hopping. . . .

In some places, there are more choice than just either anchoring, or marina hopping.



To each his own, but in areas where there are interesting harbours, I don't really want to spend more than half the nights at anchor. There is nothing like being tied up to the ancient town quay in some medieval port city, right in the middle of everything. Walk right off the boat and into the action. Or sit in the cockpit with a drink and watch the world go by. Love it!



Cruising in U.S. waters, we normally stayed at anchor all but one night a week, on average -- just until we needed water and to do laundry. But that was because the marinas are uninteresting (with few exceptions), and also very expensive. The equation is very different somewhere like the Baltic, or Brittany -- much more interesting, and much less expensive. We rarely pay more than €35 (for a 54' boat) in the Baltic, and the absolute maximum is probably €80 (Tallinn Old Town; Sandhamn).



We have a fair amount of autonomy, not as much as Noelex and SWL (but who does?). I have been nearly a whole summer without tying up to a dock. But I like very much being in a nice harbour, and I like unlimited fresh water, and I like shore power which allows me to heat silently and not manage batteries and generators. I like meeting new people, which is much easier at a dock than on the hook (although we do it on the hook too). I like streaming Netflix using harbour wifi.



I also love being at anchor.


Best of all for me is a nice balanced combination of the two.


To each his own!

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That's not how induction works. Just because the hob is set on 800w doesn't mean it is drawing 800w continuously.

I did leave out duty cycle. 50% duty cycle could reduce consumption by 40% (source: analogdevices.com). I also left out all the other power draws on the boat: refrigeration, electronics, lights, computing, communications. Based on having made detailed calculations in the past my shortcut favored induction.

I can’t find a source that talks about 1% duty cycle for normal cooking. Based on a slow cooker making chili I’ll buy 10% for six or eight hours, but the duty cycle will be near 100% for the first 30 or 40 minutes. Thermal inertia is great but you have to build it up first.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

It depends on the meal, of course. My hob is 2000 watts, with 800 and 1200 watt settings. It will blow out 2000 watts (and no problem for me Victron inverter) only when maximum heating something -- like boiling a pot of something from cold.

Right. I ran numbers based on the scenario that included a 1000W inverter and the list of dishes. Only the curry would be a gentle duty cycle. The others require heating a large thermal mass (an omelet is not large but you want to get the heat up quickly and turn it out. Some depends on fillings of course and French or country omelet). Even the current needs to be heated (high duty cycle) before simmering (low duty cycle).
“Much more” depends on thresholds. From a pure energy point of view induction is about 22% more efficient than resistive electric. Gas falls somewhere in between. That is not an integral multiplier as you imply. As for times, that depends on energy input and efficiency. Efficiency is a relatively small factor compared to energy input, and on less energy intense boats than yours that is limited. We’re back then to apples and apples.
Omelets are high heat for short periods. It’s like an electric toilet. It draws a lot but not for very long. The curry and the spaghetti are much more demanding.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

But in general, I agree it's not something you would REGULARLY do on battery power unless you have a large lithium bank, and if you don't have an appropriate power source, then induction cooking won't be for you. I think we all agreed about that.

We have to catch Seaworthy Lass up on that. Further there is your statement that you don’t ordinarily cook a full meal (assuming you intended whatever your big meal of the day is) without the generator running. Big lithium bank means big charging as well.

The upshot is that waving off cost as not a factor ($50-100 hobs) is specious unless you are already set up to run big loads. Most cruising boats, in my experience, are not. Those that are, in my experience, don’t have the excess capacity to absorb more load without either giving something up or expanding generation capacity.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We've been round the houses on this already, but I'm still finding this to be fundamentally illogical. If you remove one risk, however big or small that risk is, without adding a new one, then what you've done is safer. How in the world could it be otherwise? What am I missing? Since gas on board is a non-trivial risk (the most modest thing you can say), then the difference in safety might be substantial.

I think (assumption) you are treating risk as binary. Impact of an electrical fault leading to a loss of system or to a fire is not binary. The more loads the higher the probability of a fault that leads to an undesirable impact. Adding circuits with high loads on them adds risk (increased probability of a fault).

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Gas system goes down -- it may be simple to fix, but you are fixing it ONLY for the sake of cooking. Cooking alone has resulted in that repair being necessary. It is a marginal additional repair. Electric system breaks, and you are fixing that no matter what -- you are required making that repair whether or not you are cooking with it.

Not quite. I agree that if you need to fix the gas system it is for cooking. I object to the word only, but set that aside. Not all failures can be entirely fixed at sea or off-the-grid. I refer you to the story I told above about the battery bank failure on a Moody out of Ft Lauderdale. What we could do at sea was juggle batteries to have a bank half the size. That put us on short rations for electricity. Certainly not high loads. We did a good bit of hand-steering with autopilot when the watch got tired. No plotter (used my phone). No radar. Securite on the VHF with radio watch on the top and bottom of the hour for 5 minutes.

A failure need not be a catastrophic failure and still have an impact.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Right? If not, then what am I missing?

If you lose high current you won’t suffer if you have to wait to wash your clothes. You’ll suffer if you can’t cook. I highly recommend Damart brand long underwear.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I totally agree with this. What genius dreamed up the idea of this interlock?

Someone without enough experience sailing in the real world. I’ve hauled anchors by hand and with a winch handle. I don’t want to do that anymore.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . From a pure energy point of view induction is about 22% more efficient than resistive electric.

That's only with ideal pans and only when heating with max power. The big advantage of induction is you don't heat up the air or anything around -- all the heat goes into the food. With real life pans and at medium temperatures I guess it's several times more efficient. This is reflected also in the speed of the heating -- most noticeable when heating a frying pan. Heat a frying pan on gas or resistant electric (halogen in my Helsinki apartment), and it takes a couple of minutes from cold to get to frying temp as the whole apparatus is heated up. On induction, it's seconds. And changes in temperature are almost instantaneous because there is no thermal mass save only the bottom of the pan, to change temperture of.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Omelets are high heat for short periods. It’s like an electric toilet. It draws a lot but not for very long. The curry and the spaghetti are much more demanding.

Induction is fantastic for simmering something, because it's a doddle to get the exact simmer without burning, and hold it there exactly. It's very efficient for simmering because you're not bleeding heat into the air and not maintaining temp of whole apparatus.



For boiling a bit pot of pasta the advantage is small, and that takes so much energy that you would prefer gas in any case, if you have it.



We have to catch Seaworthy Lass up on that. Further there is your statement that you don’t ordinarily cook a full meal (assuming you intended whatever your big meal of the day is) without the generator running. Big lithium bank means big charging as well.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

The upshot is that waving off cost as not a factor ($50-100 hobs) is specious unless you are already set up to run big loads. Most cruising boats, in my experience, are not. Those that are, in my experience, don’t have the excess capacity to absorb more load without either giving something up or expanding generation capacity.

Who waved off cost? I never did. We agree on this. No point in it whatsoever if you don't already have the electrical capacity, power source, and the rest of the infrastructure. If you don't abundant power on board, gas is a no-brainer, as you can store a great deal of energy in a small gas bottle, and the infrastructure required is not that expensive.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . .I think (assumption) you are treating risk as binary. Impact of an electrical fault leading to a loss of system or to a fire is not binary. The more loads the higher the probability of a fault that leads to an undesirable impact. Adding circuits with high loads on them adds risk (increased probability of a fault).

I did not come to this lightly. It is really is VIRTUALLY binary, in my view. If you have multiple high current consumers, the marginal risk of fire resulting from adding electric cooking, is basically zero. Which is to say -- if you've got an electrical fault which leads to a fire, and you are running multiple consumers drawing as much or more power, you're going to have that fire with or without electric cooking. The addition of electric cooking makes zero difference. OK, it might be slightly more than zero but it will approach zero really really closely. On a boat where you run clothes dryers, electric heat, power tools, drone chargers, etc etc etc etc -- a bit of electric cooking is a drop in the ocean. If you just HAPPEN to have a fire while using the hob, well, you for damned sure would have had it anyway when running the electric fan heater.



So in that case you have really significantly improved safety -- by exactly, the entire quantum of risk you had by having gas on board.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

.Not quite. I agree that if you need to fix the gas system it is for cooking. I object to the word only, but set that aside. Not all failures can be entirely fixed at sea or off-the-grid. I refer you to the story I told above about the battery bank failure on a Moody out of Ft Lauderdale. What we could do at sea was juggle batteries to have a bank half the size. That put us on short rations for electricity. Certainly not high loads. We did a good bit of hand-steering with autopilot when the watch got tired. No plotter (used my phone). No radar. Securite on the VHF with radio watch on the top and bottom of the hour for 5 minutes.

A failure need not be a catastrophic failure and still have an impact.

OK, fair enough, but you've gained the risk of a gas system failure. For this aspect of it of course being able to cook with BOTH is a big advantage. I used to carry an electric hot plate -- resistive -- as backup to gas in case I ran out of gas or something broke. I was very glad to have it and I never worried about being unable to cook. In fact that is how I eventually arrived at induction -- I broke the hot plate, and on a lark replaced it with induction, which proceeded to blow my mind. I had never believed what people had said about cooking with induction until I accidentally tried it.



And as SWL mentioned cooking is less mission critical on our vegetarian boats since most of our provisions can be eaten raw. I anyway like to have at least one meal of the day uncooked, better two, so I do see that the equation may look different to a carnivore with a fridge full of potentially biohazardous animal body parts.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Hi Auspicious
You are focussing merely on a few considerations.

There are a myriad of aspects to consider when debating the topic of “Induction vs Gas Cooking”. A few spring to mind (I am sure I have forgotten countless ):

Safety

Cost of:
Purchase
Installation
Spares

Space needed

Ease of installation

Reliability

Maintenance required (amount and cost)

Ease of sourcing spare parts or replacement

Ease of carrying spares (cost, space)

Any smell when turned on

Any byproducts of combustion

Heat generated by the appliance

Power issues:
Is an additional power source required
Cost of the power (capital and ongoing)
Reliability of the power source
Safety
Labour required to provide the power
Other drawbacks of the power source eg noise, smell
Heat generated

Equipment needed to cook (anything special required or anything that can’t be used that you wish to)

Amount and control of heat (speed, degree)

Time taken to cook

Can it produce the type of food you are content eating

Quality of food produced

Ease of cleaning

Pleasure using

How much time you enjoy spending in the galley

How much you enjoy indulging in good food on a daily basis

Cosmetics

What backups can be used

Can the backups provide you with the food you do not wish to ever need to do without

And CRITICALLY: How flexible are you and how happy are you to modify what you do?


The importance of EACH of these considerations needs to be weighed up carefully and will vary from person to person.

There is simply no “ideal” solution that covers every boat and everyone. One system does simply not “win” universally.

SWL

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Let’s see. 1200W hob running about 800W so as not to overload the inverter. 220VAC to the hob. 12VDC battery bank. 95% efficiency in the inverter. Assume you run your FLAs between 50% and 80% SOC like most cruisers. That means if your batteries are at 80% you have 40 minutes of cook time to draw down your batteries to 50% IF YOU DON’T USE ANY OTHER ELECTRICAL POWER AT ALL. Then you have to put that energy back in. Power level might be lower for curries than the others. Lots more stew time.

I don't have a good handle on our power consumption at the moment after doubling the solar from 150w to 300w and fitting a small 20L freezer over the winter. However, previously we ran the FLAs between 100% and 75%, once we even dropped to 65%. Those ordinary FLA truck batteries (220Ah) lasted 7 years, so happy to drop to a pair of Group 24s as replacements.

My concern was drawing a large current from a pair of small batteries quickly, but if the load is cyclic and its day time, then there is a solar input to the inverter too, so perhaps not such a big concern.

Curries are probably best done in the slow cooker. With a capacity of 1.5L its perfect for two of us and uses 110w to heat up, then cycles on a 50% duty, so quite a small draw which we can leave running for most of the day, a great way to cook curry.

Originally Posted by Adelie

Is that 170Ah at 12v or 24v?

I have 320Ah at 12v on a 20' boat.

They are a pair of Trojan TMX 24s in parallel so 12v and 170Ah. I did order a pair of Rolls FLAs. When they turned up the voltage was 12.2, they were 20 months old and covered in dust. Didn't even remove them from the pallet, they went straight back. They did me a deal on the five month old TMX 24s instead which I accepted.

[Pete7]

So, what is the score with pans?

Earlier in the thread some recommended aluminium covered in stainless steel. Surely copper covered in stainless steel will transmit the heat more effectively?

The square boatie frying pan has a stainless steel base and aluminium with teflon, so that might be getting a good workout.

Pete

[Seaworthy Lass]

PS I ran out of steam before I finished the last post .

In our case we fitted a gas stove as we simply did not have the power to run an electric galley all year around (we wanted the option of cruise at anchor in winter at higher latitudes when the sun barely skims the horizon all day and for not much more than 6 hours in total). For a host of reasons did not wish to be generator dependent and it was a very high priority for us not to install one.

We have done everything possible to make the gas installation and use as safe as possible.

We have tried to minimise the frequency gas bottles need to be replaced/refilled by storing 3 x 12 kg bottles (with the capacity for 3 more).

Having said all that, I would dearly love to do away with the gas for two big reasons:

1. For us, replacing or refilling gas bottles is truly difficult, as we do not wish to tie up anywhere in between our two yearly haul out (again for a host of reasons) amd we enjoy more remote anchorages away from civilisation. This is a personal choice, but a high priority for us. In winter in Greece on our previous boat I would run through a 10 kg bottle in 3 weeks. As I said, I am a keen cook. It was an absolute pain replacing the bottles.

2. In winter the moisture released as a byproduct of gas combustion is a huge issue. Any condensation is unbearable for me, particularly in winter.

By learning to recently successfully “bake” in a frypan I have been using our diesel Refleks hotplate this past winter for all cooking, and an electric kettle and an induction hotplate (very easily powered by solar, even for hours on end) the rest of the time. Our gas has been turned off at the bottle for nearly seven months now, something I would have thought impossible given I am a super keen cook and our oven was previously used at least once daily.

The only reason I think I will unavoidably need gas again at the moment is for multi day passages in cloudy conditions.

Food for thought?

SWL