Is a Fridge Worth Installing?

[Curmugeon]

When we left for our circumnavigation we also had limited freezer space. We found a community cannery near Ruskin Florida just before we left and bought chicken, beef and pork and canned (in canning bottles) I think it was about 70 canning bottles. We used different seasonings and lots of wine. Each can(bottle)gave us two days meals. I opened the last bottle in Australia about three years later.
We did trail a line and caught dophin fish, kingfish and tuna. All were filletted, cooked and eaten. The cooked fillet would last over a week in the fridge if properly packaged.
My wife is a Home Economist and we would be happy to share our experiences if you want to contact us.

[boatnerd]

If you can afford get the items you want now (in the beginning), even on a sm boat. Fridge, watermaker, windvane, elec windlass, furler. You'll have to be handy to maintain/repair. You don't alway need to use these luxuries and you can always decide to get rid of them later. The power hungry items need to be feed. Consider extra alternator/regulator, sm generator, solar you can store and put away in addition to what you have mounted. This sounds extreme but if your organized and resourceful even on a small boat you can enjoy these luxuries. You can also change your mind and be a minamalist.

Cheap 9 or 15l
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/BornTech-Electric-Portable-Refrigerator-Freezer/dp/B08BF1P3CW&ved=2ahUKEwjL3qjN7O31AhVIH0QIHVHRD4UQFn oECA4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2ggWxhLFoCmTaTng2V8tEW

[clakiep]

I spent almost 3 years sailing a 45' wodden, long keel yawl. No refrigerator or freezer, just a isolated cold box to fill with block or cube ice ashore. Would last for about 3 days plus several days of the goddies floating in cold water. Eggs last for monthes if you cover the shells with vaseline. But if You do go for a freezer, I would recomend a engine driven compressor type. You'll get high cooling power when the engine is running while motoring or just charging batteries, with no threat to Your batterie bank or electrical system.

Capt. Claus - ocean tramp of the eighties

[Sidney777]

Many 12 volt 35 quart freezer fridge use 5.5 amps. While running. $1200 ones use less.
Need 300 watts solar as insurance for bad days. Once your battery bank goes down, 100 watts & 5 amp won't recharge for many, many days.
...... Maybe add Wind generator. Works day and night.

[Pegu Club]

Originally Posted by Notfast

I've got a Westerly Centaur which is a 26' cruising sloop I'm slowly outfitting for probably going most of the way around the world although I don't plan to return to my starting point of British Columbia in Canada.

I've got a new engine with a 70 amp externally regulated alternator and one 100 watt monocrystalline solar panel feeding a 345 amp hour carbon foam (Firefly) house bank. Minimal electronics just tablets for navigation and cabin/nav lights all LED.

I prefer to eat beef, pork (bacon), butter, eggs and beef tallow but in my land travels in Latin America I didn't see much in the way of good quality steaks that will freeze well and I imagine the selection is more limited in the south pacific. I'm also on a low budget as the big ticket refit items I have to buy before shoving off will constitute a year's profits so not much left for food etc. Should I even bother with a fridge/freezer? I was considering an either or unit that can be used as a freezer for offshore.

Loose plans are a year or two in Sea of Cortez before crossing to Marquesas and probably spending years in the South Pacific. I'd then like to spend several years in Asia especially Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia before heading to the Med and Western Europe and just running out the clock going between Europe and the Caribbean/ Latin America.

Advice?

We cruise on a Bristol 29.9, and have two firefly group 31 batteries fed by the 70 amp alternator on our Beta 16 diesel, and two one hundred watt semi flexible Renergy solar panels on the Bimini top. We do have a 12 volt fridge/freezer, an Engel to be exact. It is situated in the quarter berth. We use it as a fridge primarily, and it has been in use for two years, having no issues with our electric supply being sufficient for our use. I would say that it is worth having, if not else for the cold beer.

We as well are on the lower end of luxury electronics, with just a 7 inch chart plotter, the fridge, the charging of the lap top I-phones, I-pads, and hand held VHF radios, with LED lights throughout. We use a Monitor steering vane, that does have the option of an electric powered tiller pilot auto pilot, it is a “Pelagic” we purchased from Scanmar international, but that is only in use when the engine is running. Frankly this arraignment works very well, and is worthy of your consideration, all the best.

Fair winds,

[Martinini]

Tablets for navigation--NO, buy a couple of REAL Chartplotters. Tablets can be back up's. Tablets aren't built for the enviroment the plotters are. Look for solar panels here onlinesales@sunelec.com. Best prices I have found even with shipping. USA number
(786) 565-93596 really should check them out.

[Copacabana]

[QUOTE=Pegu Club;3569888]We cruise on a Bristol 29.9, and have two firefly group 31 batteries fed by the 70 amp alternator on our Beta 16 diesel, and two one hundred watt semi flexible Renergy solar panels on the Bimini top. We do have a 12 volt fridge/freezer, an Engel to be exact. It is situated in the quarter berth. We use it as a fridge primarily, and it has been in use for two years, having no issues with our electric supply being sufficient for our use. I would say that it is worth having, if not else for the cold beer.

We as well are on the lower end of luxury electronics, with just a 7 inch chart plotter, the fridge, the charging of the lap top I-phones, I-pads, and hand held VHF radios, with LED lights throughout. We use a Monitor steering vane, that does have the option of an electric powered tiller pilot auto pilot, it is a “Pelagic” we purchased from Scanmar international, but that is only in use when there is no wind and the engine is running. Frankly this arraignment works very well, and is worthy of your consideration, all the best.

Fair winds,[/QUOTE

Excellent information for the OP!

[captainwd40]

Just curious if you have seen the new flexible solar panels?

No longer big and bulky and much more user friendly.

Reasonably priced ...... even the 400 watt ones!

Cheers!

[wantacruise]

Solar capacity is increasingly economical and I have found with an inverter you can run a mini fridge with a freezer consuming very few amps. Ice is nice any time of year canning definitely the way to go if you insist on maintaining a heavy meet schedule however many of the countries that you visit or majorly vegetarian so I would the meat. In fact I have found that major flexibility in your diet is extremely helpful because there's much too concern about food consumption hence our overweight society. I would recommend a watermaker so that you're not constantly chasing Quality water.

[GBR134]

I used to sail on a Centaur (Bilge Keel) and it had loads of storage room for a 26ft boat. It was also amazingly seaworthy for such a small boat - went to windward poorly and they all (the ones I ever met) needed their keels rebedded at some point.

Do you need a fridge - of course not! However, we fitted an Isotherm Classic unit in our built in cool box on our boat (Sigma 36 not Centaur for £399 + additional foam insulation). We love it - not so much for passage making but more for stationary life on the hook, In the Med, our 100w solar panel copes most of the time. If I want a cold beer it's a godsend, If I'm short of power - well it has an off switch.

[Talbot]

Consider adding a vacuum packer. It will keep food for longer even in the fridge. A decent fridge should use a lot less than 100watts. And if insulated well should have a duty cycle that really cuts down on electricity use.
A centaur would be good for coastal, but would not be my choice in long passages

[Mickeyrouse]

I think it’s all about lifestyle. Do you eat to live or live to eat? Sailors have been sailing for thousands of years without a reefer- but bad food was the cause of more than one mutiny.
Lin and Larry Pardey never had a reefer, but I’ve always thought of the Pardeys as an ideal to be aspired to, not likely to be successfully emulated. We’ve cruised for several years with our on-board reefer. For us, a choice of frozen foods and the sundowner cold beer were a very enjoyable nice touch of life. Cruising is about deciding what’s essential in life, and as you spend time aboard, the “essential” of this or that comes more clearly into focus. You could cruise indefinitely without refrigeration- it’s been done countless times. But it’s not for us.

[nofacey]

You don’t have the power to support a fridge - that and an autopilot are the highest energy consumers on a cruising sailboat. I think your boat choice is great if you keep a minimalistic approach.
- you will need a windvane (if you don’t already have a proven method of self steering)

Food wise…..there’s a lot of western “knowledge” you’ll need to unlearn.
-eggs do not require refrigeration. Buy them from any source that has a high turn over (yep, even a refrigerated store…been there, done this for years). Simply keep them in easily handled containers that fit your storage (we used the original 1 doz containers) and turn them over (the entire container) ever 4 days. Equatorial heat for 1 month, and we still had good eggs.
- there are sources for great canned butter and bacon (Red Fern, Yoder’s). Need to order by the case well ahead, but good for years.
The rest you can find out as you go. Mexico is a great starting point.

Go simple, go soon.

[Goodxcharly]

Check out the

MR040 40 quart portable top-opening 12/24V DC - 110V/120V AC fridge-freezer

I’m a livaboard and have had mine for about 2 years. No problems, works everyday.
I recently purchased a 36 Catalina with refrigeration and still use my Portable Engel because of its efficiency. Hardly runs at all on refrigeration mode. 80 watt solar panel easily keeps up the battery when anchored.

Good luck! Dave

[Mike Burch]

My first boat was a Centaur, and it was great for puddling around the South-East of England, where its 3' draught and twin keels allowed access to the lovely but shallow creeks and swatchways. But it was as slow as a wet week, as any fat little bilge-keeler will be. And, of course, it had neither fridge nor windlass.

My second boat was a 40' ketch, and it did have a fridge. Which flattened the batteries the only time I left it on. Once we got to the tropics, the regime was to run the engine for an hour in the middle of the day, to recharge the batteries and run the fridge long enough to cool a beer to have with lunch. It was never used for preserving food, and that was never a problem.

If you are seriously intending to sail the world on a Centaur, you are going to have to get used to the idea of eating whatever is available. If you're a picky eater, stock up on tins (or stay home). We ate the last tin of Marks & Spencer meat the night before reaching New Zealand fourteen months after buying it in Falmouth.

The other advice I would presume to offer is to move the Centaur's lower shrouds from the silly little chain-plate above the cabin windows down to the deck. The factory setup allows the strain on the shroud to pull the window frame up and down as the boat rolls, and this movement pumps rain or spray in through the top seal of the window. When you get sufficiently fed up with that, reinforce the side deck with several more layers of fibreglass and put a U-bolt in, well backed up with stainless plate to spread the load. You'll need to get longer shrouds made up. This may slightly widen the sheeting base for the genoa, which will in turn widen the already broad angle at which you can sail to windward—but gentlemen don't sail to windward anyway.

Rather than a fridge, I would fit much more water storage. I forget the Centaur's capacity, but it isn't generous.