Is the gimbled propane oven obsolete?

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Rohan

BTW, four years I've owned my boat now and not once have I needed a stove that was gimbaled. If I'm sailing heeled or in crashing waves then I'm really not in a mood to cook anything.

Even coastal sailing we like to cook underway, all be it fairly simple meals. Cheese omelette cooked for lunch on passage.

We don't own a generator now having sold it and replaced with solar. We do occasionally use the alternator to give a boost to the batteries if we are motor sailing somewhere and the weather is bit iffy.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by Rohan

BTW, four years I've owned my boat now and not once have I needed a stove that was gimbaled. If I'm sailing heeled or in crashing waves then I'm really not in a mood to cook anything.

We also are here on the Chesapeake. I'd agree, it's very rare indeed that we cook underway on a weekend cruise.


But stretch your legs sometime. Do 5 days in a row of 8 hour days. Add in some cold and a bit of wind. And add in an admiral who gives us wonderful meals 3 times a day. She will sometimes cook up a pot of hot water for tea or some such, or heat some sort of lunch. But very often, she'll put a roast or stew or something in a big pot, set the stove on a low setting, and 8 hours later (or maybe she'll turn it on mid-day if that's appropriate) we'll have a great dinner. Waiting till anchor-down to start making dinner works great when you do a 3 hour sail and are eating provisions mostly prepared at home, but not when what you are cooking has to simmer for 6 hours. It also works great for folks (like me) who think grilling a boneless chicken breast is the height of my skill set.


And it doesn't take crashing waves. Motorsailing in near calm, our boat will easily heel 10 degrees. That's more than you can cook with unless you have gimbals.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Rohan

I'm wondering if some people here are just trading one fuel for another. You replace your propane stove for an induction one. Great, no propane!

But then when you can't adequately charge your batteries off wind or solar you run the generator, and burn fuel that way. So you are simply burning another kind of fuel. It's one thing to add up all your solar panels and power needs, but then it's not going to work when you get multiple cloudy days in a row.

BTW, four years I've owned my boat now and not once have I needed a stove that was gimbaled. If I'm sailing heeled or in crashing waves then I'm really not in a mood to cook anything.

Even doing the fuel trade still has advantages. One less fuel type to buy and store, and you get closer to the convenient state of "fuel is fuel, power is power" without having to differentiate based on purpose.



For cooking underway, we don't do it much (as we're coastal) and being a powerboat, our stove isn't gimbaled anyway. We'll do occasional light cooking underway, but we generally avoid it. I do sometimes throw some stuff in the Instant Pot before departure and set that in the sink while we're underway.

[s/v Jedi]

Wel of course it all start with solar power. The only path to long term self reliance is through solar power. So if you don’t have enough solar power to cook with an induction cooktop, then you need to find a way to install more solar power.

We spent 15 years with 6x 110W solar panels and while this was great at the time, it was inadequate for an electric galley.

The last 2-3 years we had 5x 375W so about three times as much and we had so much power that we didn’t use shore power even when using the A/C.

Next step is batteries. You simply must change to LFP to prevent voltage sag and inefficiency. A 10kWh LFP battery is just enough and for the coming season we doubled to 20kWh for redundancy and luxury.

Now I am building a bigger solar array. Not that it was needed, but hurricane Ian took 3x375W off my arch, leaving only 2x375W on the bimini. So I decided to up the system with two layers of panels which gives 4x440W bifacial to replace the 3x375W. I expect more than 2kW of power during peak hours from the new array when the lower layer of panels is extended out.

This system with a “cassette” holding multiple panels will enable smaller boats to get enough solar power as well.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Next step is batteries. You simply must change to LFP to prevent voltage sag and inefficiency. A 10kWh LFP battery is just enough and for the coming season we doubled to 20kWh for redundancy and luxury.

Jedi, as you correctly point out, having enough solar power is the key if you want to indulge in electric cooking.

However, for those with lead acid batteries there is nothing to stop you using electric cooking providing you have a well designed electrical system, with a reasonable sized battery bank.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Jedi, as you correctly point out, having enough solar power is the key if you want to indulge in electric cooking.

However, for those with lead acid batteries there is nothing to stop you using electric cooking providing you have a well designed electrical system, with a reasonable sized battery bank.

Completely agree, but also look at the equipment people intend to cook with and the power ratings. The kettle at home is 2kW (240v), on board we use a 1kW small plastic model and we know that half full it will make 2 mugs of tea.

Multiply up the energy being saved boiling water 8 or 9 times a day plus other carefully chosen devices means a solar/battery solution that might be marginal now becomes viable. Well for us at least for most of the year, though we accept in winter we need to do something else for more than a night or two. Seeing a peak of 19w from 590w of panels on a drab January afternoon brought this home to us.

Equally using lids on pans keeps the heat in as it reduces water vapour, useful if its both hot or cold outside and saves power.

Fine tuning the balance between what you can consistently generate and not just in strong sunlight, with the boats demands takes some time. This is what Jedi is alluding to above. We think we now have a viable system for most of the seasons.

Would reverting even partially, back to some form of gas cooking make any significant improvements to our cooking methods? I don't think so.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Jedi, as you correctly point out, having enough solar power is the key if you want to indulge in electric cooking.

However, for those with lead acid batteries there is nothing to stop you using electric cooking providing you have a well designed electrical system, with a reasonable sized battery bank.

Correct, we did that too. But the difference between that and LFP is like the difference between a pop-up camper and a villa.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

But the difference between that and LFP is like the difference between a pop-up camper and a villa.

LFP has advantages but I don’t agree with your analogy. A well designed lead acid system should be able to comfortably perform all the desired electrical demands.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

LFP has advantages but I don’t agree with your analogy. A well designed lead acid system should be able to comfortably perform all the desired electrical demands.

Agreed. The lead bank will likely need to be a bit oversized (relative to actual capacity needs) to keep voltage sag reasonable under short term heavy loads. And it may need a bit more attention to charging patterns or a somewhat larger solar system than you'd need with LFP, but it can certainly work fine.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

LFP has advantages but I don’t agree with your analogy. A well designed lead acid system should be able to comfortably perform all the desired electrical demands.

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Agreed. The lead bank will likely need to be a bit oversized (relative to actual capacity needs) to keep voltage sag reasonable under short term heavy loads. And it may need a bit more attention to charging patterns or a somewhat larger solar system than you'd need with LFP, but it can certainly work fine.

If you consider capacity then I agree. But the voltage sag is a consideration for high power applications and that is what an electric galley is. You need to be able to support a 4-5kW load. Let’s take a 24V LA bank to give it a chance, as 12V of course is out of the question. 4kVA at 24V means a 167A continuous draw. What size LA bank can sustain that at a voltage not dropping below 24V? I am not sure, but my 900Ah bank couldn’t do it, while my 400Ah LFP bank doesn’t even blink an eye for that load.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

If you consider capacity then I agree. But the voltage sag is a consideration for high power applications and that is what an electric galley is. You need to be able to support a 4-5kW load. Let’s take a 24V LA bank to give it a chance, as 12V of course is out of the question. 4kVA at 24V means a 167A continuous draw. What size LA bank can sustain that at a voltage not dropping below 24V? I am not sure, but my 900Ah bank couldn’t do it, while my 400Ah LFP bank doesn’t even blink an eye for that load.

AGMs will do better than flooded under that load. And it also depends on how long you need to sustain that load and how full the batteries are when you start. How much sag you can accept also depends on what your equipment will tolerate.

I've pulled ~100 amps for a few minutes out of a mostly full 12v / 415ah AGM bank. It dipped to 11.8 volts after a few minutes. Certainly not ideal, but do-able for short periods.

LFP definitely has some big advantages in this scenario, but lead can still work (just not as well and with more over-sizing necessary).

[GreenWave]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

AGMs will do better than flooded under that load. And it also depends on how long you need to sustain that load and how full the batteries are when you start. How much sag you can accept also depends on what your equipment will tolerate.

I've pulled ~100 amps for a few minutes out of a mostly full 12v / 415ah AGM bank. It dipped to 11.8 volts after a few minutes. Certainly not ideal, but do-able for short periods.

LFP definitely has some big advantages in this scenario, but lead can still work (just not as well and with more over-sizing necessary).

Jedi is correct - and when you add in the weight and size needed in a LA set-up, this becomes a no brainer. Now, if you like having 500lbs of batteries on your boat that take up the size of a small mattress then fine.
Somewhat off topic- I just replaced 375 pounds of AGM batteries with 120 lbs of LiPO4 in 2/3 the space and I now have 2.3X the available power. Sure there was a price but I can now also run a small AC and my watermaker on the inverter (tho not at same time).

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by GreenWave

Jedi is correct - and when you add in the weight and size needed in a LA set-up, this becomes a no brainer. Now, if you like having 500lbs of batteries on your boat that take up the size of a small mattress then fine.
Somewhat off topic- I just replaced 375 pounds of AGM batteries with 120 lbs of LiPO4 in 2/3 the space and I now have 2.3X the available power. Sure there was a price but I can now also run a small AC and my watermaker on the inverter (tho not at same time).

I'm still deciding what I'll do next time I'm up for batteries. Depends on costs at that point in time and how my needs are evolving. Weight wise, if I go LFP, I may end up needing to add ballast to make up for the lighter batteries anyway, so that's not much of a concern. For this boat it's all about the combo of physical space, functional aspects, and cost.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

If you consider capacity then I agree. But the voltage sag is a consideration for high power applications and that is what an electric galley is.

My wife is a keen cook and we do all electric cooking (and heating water for showers) at the moment. The minimum voltage our system has recorded over the last thirty days with lead acid batteries was 24.27v, well above the inverter cut off voltage of 22v.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

My wife is a keen cook and we do all electric cooking (and heating water for showers) at the moment. The minimum voltage our system has recorded over the last thirty days with lead acid batteries was 24.27v, well above the inverter cut off voltage of 22v.

How big is your inverter? Can you sustain a 4kW load?