Cruising Upgrades for Pearson 33-2

[Fence Man]

Good afternoon folks. I'm after some advice on a few upgrades to make short term cruising more comfortable and convenient on our 1988 Pearson 33-2. At the moment, we have no refrigeration, not much for a battery bank, no good dinghy storage solution, no solar, and we are on the light end of instruments. Obviously, we don't have much acreage to work with here, so staying practical is quite important. Here goes with my questions.....

We have a new dodger and Bimini in the plans. Davits with a bit of solar on top would be great, but is it practical? If it is, should I get to work in the shop, or is there a ready made solution out there? Am I on the right track to think that we should work out the davits before we have the new Bimini done up? We don't plan on keeping this boat for more than a few years, but would still like it to be convenient to use.

The cruising plans we have would be for a couple weeks at a time, and from Florida to the Bahamas. For the next few years, this would be taking the boat over as the weather permits, hanging around for a week or two and flying home for a month or two of work before returning to retrieve the boat. As of now, the only onboard cold storage is the built in cooler under the chart table. Is it reasonable to install some sort of permanent refrigeration in this cooler, or are we better off tripping over one of the 12V stand alone units? I was able to hold ice for 10 days from Key West to St. Augustine in January, but we started with 40 pounds of dry ice and 40 pounds of block ice. Ice doesn't seem like a viable long term solution, but I could be wrong.

If solar panels on dinghy davits is, in fact, an option....How much charging and storage capacity is reasonable for a boat this size? It's easy to calculate what we need, but are we just pissing in the wind with a boat this size? Are we better off to run a little Honda generator a couple hours a day? When are we to the point that weight and windage have jumped the shark?

In the instrument category, I would really like to go with an integrated package. We have a fairly new Raymarine chart plotter that is capable of tethering to instruments and auto pilot, but our instruments and auto pilot are antiques. With a 45' stick, it looks like we'd be on the outer edges of reliability for wireless instruments, but I haven't found anyone with personal experience. I'm open to recommendations here, so fire away.

We are fairing the keel and doing the bottom now, as well as a few small repairs and re-bedding all of the deck fittings. The budget for the upgrades, including the bottom job, is flexible. I know that we will never recover our "investment" in a boat like this, but this one gets us out there for less than $25k instead of waiting another 5 years and spending 20 times as much. I'd like to keep this little refit under $7,500, excluding the bottom job. It'll mostly be just me and my 12 year old daughter, with my wife joining us once in a while. Probably a friend or two along most of the time as well.

Thank you in advance for what I'm certain will be a load of excellent advice.

[Fence Man]

[DaLuz]

Fence Man,

27 footer here, me and my wife living on and cruising for the last year or so.

Fridge. We bought a STAKOL brand mini 12v fridge from Amazon, about $400. Plenty big, 64 quart I think.

Solar. Two 50 watt cockpit rail mounted panels. Built frames out of PVC so they tilt from 0-90 degrees. We use LUCI solar lights for the cabin, so we are only powering the fridge, an old Garmin 525 chart plotter, a small 12v fan for the composting head, LED anchor and nav lights, 3 USB chargers, VHF and bilge. If sunny, I am good to go for days on end. No sun, fire up the diesel for a few hours.

Battery bank. One starter battery, $100 at NAPA and two deep cycle house batteries, $100 each at NAPA. So far so good.

Dinghy. West Marine soft bottom 8 footer which we drag behind if calm or lash to the foredeck if crossing. We have a small 2.5 hp outboard, painfully slow but I am okay with it. This dinghy and motor was able to hip tow my boat in calm waters at 2 knots.

We kept things pretty simple as we did not want to jump all in yet either.

Hope this helps, be safe!

[Fence Man]

Originally Posted by DaLuz

Fence Man,

27 footer here, me and my wife living on and cruising for the last year or so.

Fridge. We bought a STAKOL brand mini 12v fridge from Amazon, about $400. Plenty big, 64 quart I think.

Solar. Two 50 watt cockpit rail mounted panels. Built frames out of PVC so they tilt from 0-90 degrees. We use LUCI solar lights for the cabin, so we are only powering the fridge, an old Garmin 525 chart plotter, a small 12v fan for the composting head, LED anchor and nav lights, 3 USB chargers, VHF and bilge. If sunny, I am good to go for days on end. No sun, fire up the diesel for a few hours.

Battery bank. One starter battery, $100 at NAPA and two deep cycle house batteries, $100 each at NAPA. So far so good.

Dinghy. West Marine soft bottom 8 footer which we drag behind if calm or lash to the foredeck if crossing. We have a small 2.5 hp outboard, painfully slow but I am okay with it. This dinghy and motor was able to hip tow my boat in calm waters at 2 knots.

We kept things pretty simple as we did not want to jump all in yet either.

Hope this helps, be safe!

That is very helpful! How do you like the soft bottom dinghy? Ours is just about the same as yours, but with a 3.3. I had considered an upgrade there, but figured I'd wait until this one was shot. Thanks!

[DaLuz]

Fence Man,

As for the soft bottom dinghy, eh it is okay I suppose. It is like pushing a sponge through the water and typically a wet ride unless it is pretty flat.

I do like that I can host the thing anywhere by myself, with motor attached. I think between them both they are still under 90 pounds.

If I had to do it over, I think I would have gone for a hard dink with a sail kit. My 2.5 would push it better and it doesn't weight a bunch more, plus I think it might be fun to sail it around.

Down side of the hard dink I think would be the foredeck storage. The soft dink just conforms to the deck shape.

Be safe!

[Orion Jim]

My boat never had refrigeration. Last fall I added insulation to my ice box on the inside and relined it with 3/16 fiberglass. I did not care to rip the galley apart and I had a very large ice box which allowed this solution. I installed an Isotherm 2050 SP kit which is a water cooled unit and very efficient. I upgraded my house bank to two AGM group 31’s to ensure sufficient capacity.
The Cape Dory Board • View topic - Ice box conversion to refrigeration

[Reefmagnet]

I've had so much drama's with inbuilt fridges trying to find competent people fix them when, not if, they eventually run into problems that I ended up ditching them and just going to a portable fridge. They tend to be more economical both power and purchase price wise and are more easily fixed or replaced. Therefore, I would suggest that if you have the space, install a suitable portable.

If you can weld, davits are easy to make. I cheated by buying some used power boat cast aluminium davits and then modified them to fit the boat. I then got some one inch stainless tube and made a frame to support 300 watts of solar panels that mounts to the davit. I also added a couple of 40 watt panels to the lifelines by mounting them between stanchions using the same 1" tube as a mounting rail for a bit extra capacity. This worked out pretty cheap, but took a fair bit of labour to build and mount. As an alternative, you can use a rollup dinghy and either partially or fully deflate it for storing on deck. When empty, they actually tow reasonably well in relatively benign sea states so no need to pull up on deck if traveling short distances on good days. If you can get away without davits, you could maybe consider the solar panels campers use. There are two types. The first type is a fold up hard panel that is bulky and probably not that well suited to boat use, but there is now a "solar blanket" which has good features that I think would make them very suitable for use on a boat. The one caveat would be that they are made from small flexible panels, and these have a reputation for short life spans.


Anyhoo, just some ideas to put out there.

[guyrj33]

I suggest an asymmetric battery bank consisting of a start battery(80AH) and a house bank with two 6v golf cart batteries (225AH).
Stay with the soft dinghy and keep it on the foredeck when passage making.
Any amount of solar you can add will be good, I have a solobain 23W all-in-one that keeps my house bank topped off while on the mooring. Larger would be nice :>).
1973 Pearson 10M

[fred4936]

We have a Pearson 34-2 we purchased last spring. We hope to retire on it in about 3 years. Ours is also light on extras, no fridge, minimal electronics, etc. The plan is to mount solar panels on top of the bimini we don't have yet. Some friends of ours have that arrangement and it works well for them. We are planning on adding a refrigeration at some point, we have the same ice box you do I think. As far as dinghies go, other friends have an roll up inflatable they keep in the quarter berth, with their Torqueedo. Our choice so far is a Portland Pudgy on the foredeck or towed, depending on situation, as I have grown to hate inflatables. These are light boats, so I do not want to overload mine. Also I think more stuff = more problems. Of course I say this now, but that may change once we are "out there". I am following this thread with mutual interest!

[guyrj33]

We started with a 8'6" roll up zodiac with a 2.5 Johnson. Switched to a fiberglass Dyer Midget 7'11" with sail kit. I much prefer rowing to motoring, but the Zodiac did hold more stuff and made it easier to cover longer distances. Either dink fit on the foredeck of our 10M.
p.s. I've never used the sail kit while cruising.

[Scaramanga F25]

The most practical, stowable, fast dinghy I ever had (owned every type over 43 years) was my orange 11-foot Metzeller inflatable bottom with a 15Merc 2stroke, (74 lbs). Used by my teenagers to tow windsurfers as surfboards, etc, etc hard usage. Lasted as long as other types before inflatable bottom stringing began to let go. Although very heavy, AB fiberglass bottom rigids are excellent if you have a 40+ footer. Rigid aluminium
bottoms are lighter but will dent if dropped.

[WSMFP]

I have a 31ft boat with 4x 6v house bank and a cranking battery, two 100w renology panels on the bimini. The 6v batteries from batteries +bulbs stores are a great deal and they go on sale occasionally for $20 off. Make sure to get a solar controller that will equalize the batteries and you can program with frequency and equalize voltage. This will help the batteries last alot longer.

Victron battery monitor was also a great addition. I'm a big fan of Victron stuff.

Even in Florida summer I've been very happy with my isotherm air cooled system. I think it's the 2501 model if I remember correctly. Ice boxes are pretty easy to insulate with foil foam insulation board and some good metal tape. The fridge was a pretty easy DIY install but my boat isn't a pearson so not sure how they are physically set up.