Extended cruising refrigeration needs

Trying to increase freezer capacity for mostly anchorage cruising and wonder what the veterans choose. I have fairly significant solar/house bank and am wondering if utilizing the existing ice box with an ice maker is doable or is cold plating more practical? Simple is gooder for me, opinions?

Or a stand alone Dometic 12vt. Can either be a freezer or another refrigerate but not both at the same time. Remember to secure it so it doesn't flop around in the seas.

Just looked at a few Schucker 438 photo's on the net...nice boat!

Another option to adding energy gobbling freezer capacity is to use a food dryer at home.

So far we've dried meatless meals, but my sister dries meals with meat for her extended hiking journeys with no adverse effects. Nothing like having a favourite "home cooked" meal once in a while

You might want to talk to Sea Freeze in Bellingham. They make custom refers and freezers for extended cruising.

MurrayM said:

Just looked at a few Schucker 438 photo's on the net...nice boat!

Another option to adding energy gobbling freezer capacity is to use a food dryer at home.

So far we've dried meatless meals, but my sister dries meals with meat for her extended hiking journeys with no adverse effects. Nothing like having a favourite "home cooked" meal once in a while

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I actually owned a Schucker back in the day in Key West as a live aboard. Great boat for island hopping. Years later I moved to Cape Coral long after I sold the boat and met one of the guys that built my boat. Small world.

I cruised extensively using a 6 cu ft built in box freezer/fridge. It used a 12V Danfoss compressor, with a keel condenser (Frigoboat), was well insulated and had 2 cu ft freezer section where the evaporator coil was located and about 4 cu ft spill over refrigerator section. It used 50-75 amp hours daily.

There are packaged 6+ cu foot freezer/fridges that are Danfoss powered, like Novakool, etc. These aren't as well insulated and don't have keel condensers, so they will use more amp hours, probably close to 100.

I believe 6 cu ft total is the minimum I would cruise full time with. 8+ would be better. I could store frozen meats for a couple of weeks worth and keep cheese, vegetables fine in the refrigerator section. I would typically shop every two weeks, but of course at the end of that period the lettuce was crappy.

And don't bother with cold plates (eutectic). These were developed for propulsion engine powered compressors where you needed to store cold in between engine runnings (typically twice a day). With batteries and 12V Danfoss compressors, they are unneeded.

Some 120V Energy Star rated fridges can be fairly efficiently run with an inverter, but I am sure they take more energy than my Frigoboat system did, but maybe close to a packaged 12V type.

An icemaker is a big energy hog. Expect to double the above figures if you want a 120V inverter powered icemaker in addition.

David

Custom built-in box big as you like, either lots of solar or run a little dino juice for an hour in the AM, good batt monitor helps.

Avoid water cooling, not needed anymore

Technautics Cool Blue (Rich Boren Rich@cruiserowater.com or info@technauticsInc.com , phone +1 (619) 609-3432

OzeFridge well recommended but Australian

Both above are eutectic, much more efficient than anyone else

John Tully, ColdEh Marine Refrigeration http://www.coldeh.com comes close with evaporators


SeaFrost https://www.seafrost.com, Cleave

OTS for DIY

Adler/Barbour ("AB") part of Dometic/Waeco now, Cold Machine

Isotherm

hmmm

we have a small chest freezer on the flying bridge. I sewed a nice canvas cover for it.

three seasons now, and the price was $175 at home depot.

Fine if you're running dino juice for hours per day.

I doubt that is efficient enough for living on the hook for extended solar-only periods.

The ones I'm talking about from the sailing cruisers/liveaboard world get down to 20-30AH per day even for pretty big box sizes. Temp difference inside vs ambient is the main factor for variability.

The real key is insulation, 4" is just a good start.

Our boat came with top loading separate fridge and freezer with engine driven cold plates. They are very easy to keep cold while using the boat. They are so powerful that they only seem to need around 30min engine run time per day, and could easily go a couple days if they were full and down to temp. The big downside is that you have to completely unload them when the boat is at the marina, because you have to be there to run them to keep them cold. They are the same except of the set point, and this summer we went on a three week trip and turned them both into freezers, to accommodate the fish we caught. We used the second freezer to make Ice for coolers for our refrigerated food. It worked out really well. We were able to fillet, Vacuum pack, and freeze 11 king salmon, 8 ling cod, 5 rockfish, and 1 Halibut. I really like the option to turn the fridge into a freezer if the need arises.

Rich, Cleave or OzeFridge listed above could do a very clean conversion to 12V on that, not touching the icebox at all.

It may even be possible to leave the engine compression in place and add the electric as an option.

We have an Engle frig/freezer. Uses little current and has been running flawlessly for 5-years 365/24/7. Freezes everything rock hard.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001SNWCF...t=&hvlocphy=9007525&hvtargid=pla-315823554861

I'll 2nd the Engle, if you check into a portable, the Dometic/Waeco models are energy hogs when compared to the Engle. It uses a swing compressor, much more efficient. Don't have one, would like one, every one I spoke to who does have one loves it.

I removed our Grunert cold plate system, it was a horrible energy hog, required genset operation to run, and ultimately developed an internal leak in the cold plate. It's archaic technology that was developed when all refrigeration required lots of horsepower. Today's equipment is technologically superior in so many ways.

I replaced my Grunert with a Frigoboat keel cooled evaporator and rebuilt the freezer box with vacuum insulated panels, it works 100% better. And I freed up a tremendous amount of real estate by ditching the Grunert.

We put an extra small freezer on deck.

https://www.amazon.com/Igloo-FRF110...e=UTF8&qid=1508644386&sr=1-4&keywords=freezer

Doesn’t draw much juice, and holds all the overflow we need for anchoring.

Aside from our 500lt / 17.5 cubic ft Samsung 240v fridge freezer we have 3 smaller bar fridge size units which we constantly use 2 of.

Both of those units are 240v Kmart units, one is a 5 draw freezer and one is fridge only.
Cheap and work fine.

Big solar = zero genset on a sunny day inc 240v hws
Zero sun day needs 1.5 hours on genset inc 240v hws.

MikeyG
Two items of information would be helpful. How much refrigerator and how much freezer space are you looking for. (In cubic feet). Several good quality marine manufacturers supply units around 4 cubic feet which run on AC/DC with Danfoss compressors.

The second piece of information is where do you intend to cruise. These determines ambient temperature and the ability to restock frequently - as opposed to a larger freezer.

Most cruising trawlers have refrigeration units twice the size of equivalent sailboats. And most run their generator (or main) an hour a day (or more) to charge the batteries. Solar and wind will do a great job of adding to the diesel generator but it would take a large bank (say six 140 watt panels of solar) to really reduce the generator use.

I have seen a good number of holding plate applications on sailboats and a couple of trawlers and have not been happy with the actual use. One not thought of downside of the holding plate units is the availability of parts for repair. The Danfoss compressor units use basic residential technology which can be serviced by both marine and household technicians.









dc

Bay Pelican said:

. The Danfoss compressor units use basic residential technology which can be serviced by both marine and household technicians

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Its why I like the household stuff.
Cheaper to buy a new fridge than get someone on board to look at let alone attempt a repair.

The big household unit has been running trouble free onboard for 10 years 24/7 , not many marine units can claim that sort of reliability.

We put a Haier 5cf chest freezer in the corner of our salon for the 3 month Exuma trip this past spring Wal-Mart $149). We also have a built-in full size stainless fridge freezer. We filled both with the meat we needed.

We kept the small chest freezer closed until we had used up all of the space in the built-in and then moved all of it across and shut off the smaller unit.

We had a house of 12 golf cart batteries. Worked fine for us. In fact the little chest freezer is still on board.

Cold plates , eutetic plates work well if you like silence.

They can absorb huge amounts of energy if large enough and if engine driven can be brought down rapidly.

On our 90/90 we use 2 hours of engine run time and get 3-4 days of +5Fdeg in the freezer section.

The pull down time would be longer if an electric compressor of say 1 1/2HP was used noisemaker powered.

Choosing dual circuit plates allows a std 120V unit to give the boat refrigeration dockside , and works as a backup should the belted main unit fail.

The hassle is large plates take room from the reefer section , so the box must be extra large to hold the plates as well as 6-8 cubic ft of food.

Your choice of how much engine operation or how much noisemaker time you require a week would drive the choice.

On LUCY our work boat we chose propane for the reefer.

A 20# propane tank lasts 18 days to a month (outside temperature) and powers the range and oven.

Ice cream is just as hard , and if we choose to lay about on the hook somewhere , no mechanical operation is ever needed.

menzies said:

We put a Haier 5cf chest freezer in the corner of our salon for the 3 month Exuma trip this past spring Wal-Mart $149). We also have a built-in full size stainless fridge freezer. We filled both with the meat we needed.

We kept the small chest freezer closed until we had used up all of the space in the built-in and then moved all of it across and shut off the smaller unit.

We had a house of 12 golf cart batteries. Worked fine for us. In fact the little chest freezer is still on board.

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beautiful galley. It is bigger than my galley, salon and pilot house too.

Wow, as I suspected I didn't know what I didn't know! Lots to research now but first impressions that Engle unit looks attractive. Doing some "rearranging" in the former dinette area and cubbies for two of those would be simple.
BP, Keys to Honduras with currently 560 watts of solar although I think I'll end up with 800 watts replacing the flybridge Bimini with them. I'll add appropriate battery to match but would just like to be lazy and have extra capacity.

You folks have a lot more room to play with than a 34ft American Tug but you do have bigger boats to dock too.

"The big household unit has been running trouble free onboard for 10 years 24/7 , not many marine units can claim that sort of reliability."

Not many of the boats here have 24/7/365 electric availability.

You will love the Engel. You might save a few bucks buying it from a trucker supply company. Many truckers use them.

hmason said:

You will love the Engel. You might save a few bucks buying it from a trucker supply company. Many truckers use them.

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Howard you own a slip up in stuart?

OldDan1943 said:

Howard you own a slip up in stuart?

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No, We stay at Sunset Bay every winter.

FF said:

"The big household unit has been running trouble free onboard for 10 years 24/7 , not many marine units can claim that sort of reliability."

Not many of the boats here have 24/7/365 electric availability.

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This marina does, except when we lose power durning a hurricane. They usually shut the water off first.
I cant tell you the location because it is in the bat cave.
Or is it, the marina does does not have any open slips.

hmason said:

No, We stay at Sunset Bay every winter.

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The Stuart area is very nice. Everything is convenient.
Years ago, I went the Chapman's. Couple years later, after the death of my Nordhavn46, I bought my AT up there.
Good boatyards up there too.

FF said:

Cold plates , eutetic plates work well if you like silence.

They can absorb huge amounts of energy if large enough and if engine driven can be brought down rapidly.

On our 90/90 we use 2 hours of engine run time and get 3-4 days of +5Fdeg in the freezer section.

The pull down time would be longer if an electric compressor of say 1 1/2HP was used noisemaker powered.

Choosing dual circuit plates allows a std 120V unit to give the boat refrigeration dockside , and works as a backup should the belted main unit fail.

The hassle is large plates take room from the reefer section , so the box must be extra large to hold the plates as well as 6-8 cubic ft of food.

Your choice of how much engine operation or how much noisemaker time you require a week would drive the choice.

On LUCY our work boat we chose propane for the reefer.

A 20# propane tank lasts 18 days to a month (outside temperature) and powers the range and oven.

Ice cream is just as hard , and if we choose to lay about on the hook somewhere , no mechanical operation is ever needed.

Click to expand...

I would think that for living at anchor an all propane boat, as far as cooking, hot water and fridge, would be very practical. It sure seems to work for dry-camping RVers.....

Major safety issues, not insurmountable but. . .

Actually I'm surprised Webasto et al don't make diesel absorption fridges.