Experience with refrigerators on extended cruises?

[LOUIS B HOLUB]

Amazing how our grandparents survived using "ice boxes". With the advancement in technology and quality of portable coolers, it would seem that a slab of "block ice" would work well for several days.
We throw a "bag of ice" in the cooler from WalMart, and it lasts nearly 2 days.
I wonder if a slab of block ice would last at least 3-4 days with an efficient upgraded portable cooler (ice chest).

[eric3a]

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[Night Sailor]

Sure block ice works well. I recall the day when my parent's moved up to a bigger icebox in our kitchen in Bradenton, Florida. It held 50 lbs blocks of ice instead of 25. The ice delivery man, a black man named Charlie picked it up in tongs from the back of his flat bed truck covered with canvas, and installed it for his customers. And if I followed him outside to his truck, he'd reach inside the back and give me a chip of ice to suck. He sure made friends of us little kids that way. Because of Charlie, I could not understand at five years old, why some people were afraid of and said they hated black people.

Today I don't use block ice or bagged ice cubes because frozen water in bottles is multipurpose and easier to handle, and the chemical cold packs are also very good to keep their cold once you freeze them on shore.

[Boblee]

Night Sailor the iceman was obviously a universal neccessity as we hung around the back of the (horse) cart the same way waiting for the chips.
Some of the new coolers will hold block ice for a week but ice takes up space and water and foostuffs is usually not a good combination.
If drinks were the only reason for a cooler a compressor fridge would be hard to justify but for instance we keep ours on freeze for 3-4 months while travelling so that we can keep fish etc between stops.
Never did and still don't see a lot of black people working over here especially in that type of industry.

[Moe]

hvolkhart, I looked at the Link 10 manual today and it operates the way I thought, with 150 milliamps maximum current. See page 38.

Regarding ice, Don T and others once advised me to freeze half-gallon milk jugs of water. That's turned out to be one of the best tips I've ever gotten. Six of them filled to about 90%, the air squeezed out, then set in the freezer so they'll expand as squarely as possible, leave room in the 48 quart Coleman cooler for 24 twelve-ounce canned drinks, as well as some food.

This amounts to about 22 pounds of ice, same as the big bag of cubes that goes for nearly $4 at the gas station or marina and the milk jugs last much longer, keep the cooler contents drier, and provide sanitary ice water for drinking with the canned drinks run out.

[Boblee]

The 2L milk containers are what we use for the dinghy esky when heading off for a days fishing or if just for a short period a sheet of techni ice.
If we are using the motor or am getting extra charge from the solar will screw the freezer up/down? a notch to make ice quicker.
Having these in the freezer also gives a bit of reserve too if running low on battery.

[walt]

Hvolkhart, I dont know if this is still useful to you but I reviewed my power use recently and put it all into a excel calculator. You can open it here:

http://analogengineering.com/sail/sailb ... gement.xls

Any of the numbers in purple can be changed and the output analysis is all linked to the inputs so you can play with loads, sources, battery capacity and see how the utility changes. The first section inputs all the loads and power sources. The second section does some calculations. Section 2.1 is for trip planning (in my case) and tells me how long of a trip I can go on before my batteries start running low. I can go about 6 days +/-. Section 2.2 basically lets me know if my solar panel can meet my needs during the summer where I only use the boat about once per week.

I dont have any big loads and the 20 watt panel and 230 amp hour of battery capacity works well. It seems as soon as you go to an electric fridge or AC, you pretty much have to also go to a genset or a huge battery bank.

The solar capacity in this is based on the numbers Rich used and it turns out this is also very close to the derating I have used in the past calculated in a different method so I think its certainly ballpark.

[Night Sailor]

Walt,
Thanks for sharing the spreadsheet. I had charted the usage for my boat but only on paper, always promising my self "some day" to put it in Excel. Your effort is handy to adapt.

I'm curious as to why you excluded navigation lights, or at least an all round anchor light in your figures. Do you use one not powered by the boats battery banks?

[walt]

I added the extra loads - just guessed at the numbers however. Hopefully I modified the file without breaking anything. For the most part, Ive just never needed navigation lights.. but plan to at some point.

[Catigale]

We load 4-6 quart containers of milk and lemonade, hard frozen in an Igloo cooler for our 7 days trip. If all the food in the cooler is frozen hard, you will have lost the ice but still have 32F in the cooler at the end of that time. The length of time is really helped by keeping the cooler shut - drinks and whatnot we keep outside and drink at room temp.

I might buy one bag of ice on the Cape on day 5 or 6 to keep the cold.

[eric3a]

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[DaveB]

On a week cruise I would freeze 4- 6x12x6 blocks of ice than put them in my 5 day cooler and don't open them up until I needed them for the other two coolers (usually 3 days) thats for two people and plenty of beer.
On my single handed 10 day Beer cruise I did the same and still had ice after 10 days. (that was on my 19 ft. Potter)
I now use frozzen gal. water jugs so I can have drinking water and plan on useing High desity insulation and glass over the Ice chest under the settee.
Back in 1982 when I equiped my Alberg 35 for a World cruise I put in the Adler Barber that was new at the time and batteries couldn't keep up, after rewireing the altinator and put in a seperate regulator to a reastrate I still was not satisfied. I than made a wind generator in St. Thomas and with the trade winds easy supplied my elect. needs.
Getting back to Ref. on a Mac. no portable unit will do down here in SW FL. and the heat genarated by the unit would cook you out of the cabin.
The Mac. is big enough were a couple could easy have Ice for 2 weeks even down here if they plan it right and good sorce for cold water.
Dave

We load 4-6 quart containers of milk and lemonade, hard frozen in an Igloo cooler for our 7 days trip. If all the food in the cooler is frozen hard, you will have lost the ice but still have 32F in the cooler at the end of that time. The length of time is really helped by keeping the cooler shut - drinks and whatnot we keep outside and drink at room temp.

I might buy one bag of ice on the Cape on day 5 or 6 to keep the cold.

[johnnyonspot]

Some advice on solar panels and refrigeration from a poster named MMNETSEA on cruiserlog:

SOLAR PANELS
Panel degradation is usually due to excessive heat. For long life and
greater output keep those panels as cool as possible. Do not mount flat
on the roof, let air circulate under the panel.
DO NOT use shunt regulation, this only dissipates the power as heat in
the panel reducing life. Solar panels are current generators, not
voltage generators therefore any voltage regulation is a terrible waste
of panel power and money. If you are concerned about overcharge from
solar panels get a contactor type controller. This type of device opens
a contact when battery voltage nears gassing.

REFRIGERATION
Does your electrical powered ref run too often draining your batteries?
I reduced my battery drain by putting a bunch of those small, rectangular
shaped for easy stacking, plastic drinking water bottles full of brine in
the freezer compartment. To start measure the salt you add to a pan of
seawater until a potato floats. Then add that same amount of salt again,
stir until dissolved then fill your bottles. The bottle should not
freeze, a slush is just right. Now you have a poor sailors eutectic ref
system. We also use small plastic medicine bottles with brine in place
of ice cubes. Ice in your freezer continuously absorbs energy, ice will
never be colder that it’s freezing temperature (zero C). Better than
ice, the super cold brine bottle does not dilute the beer.

The original thread: Handy Hints for the Cruising Sailor

[Catigale]

All that advice sounds ok but this one

I reduced my battery drain by putting a bunch of those small, rectangular
shaped for easy stacking, plastic drinking water bottles full of brine in
the freezer compartment.

sounds a bit iffy to me...my thermodynamics instructor is rolling his eyes from the grave..

[RonCarter]

Ice in your freezer continuously absorbs energy, ...

What does the ice do with all the energy it absorbs?

... ice will never be colder that it's freezing temperature (zero C).

Only partially true, a mixture of ice and water will "always" be at the freezing point of the solution (which for salt water is zero F BTW) until all the ice is melted or all the water frozen (ie it's no longer a mixture). The thermal "inertia" of an ice/water mixture is due to the energy involved in changing states between ice and water.

The effectiveness of adding brine-filled containers is because brine's freezing point (0F) is lower than that of pure ice (0C), and the brine has more thermal "mass" than air or most other substances. You can increase the effectiveness by further reducing the temperature of everything in the cooler (including the brine), perhaps by using dry ice.