Some here have poo-pooed a cruising power boat which has no propane stove- only electric and secondarily the engine's coolant system is not hooked up to the hot water heater. So you have to run the genset (essential) for cooking and hot water heating. Some think that this is difficult and problematic.
We just got back from a week long cruise- Ct River to Block Island, Hadley Harbor near Woods Hole, Edgartown in Marthas Vinyard, Newport, RI and home. We have such a boat with no propane and no engine hot water heater. It worked very well.
This is how we used it.
Every morning when we were not cruising that day I would start the generator, a small 3.5 KW NextGen to make coffee and to recharge the batteries. I usually would run it for 15-30 minutes, maybe longer if the batteries were down. Then in the evening I would run it for 30 minutes or so to cook (well reheat mostly) anything on the stove for dinner and heat hot water. The batteries also recharged- more on that in another post.
So the average genset running time was about an hour daily. If I had a larger battery bank I could have used the inverter for coffee but since I needed to recharge batteries anyway why not use the genset.
Sure I need a generator to make this all work. Had the genset failed (and it sort of did half way through the trip with a plugged Racor filter) things would have been much tougher on board.
But the current set up works and the cost and effort to replace the stove, add a propane locker, plumb the engine's coolant to the water heater, just isn't worth it to me.
David
We just got back from a week long cruise- Ct River to Block Island, Hadley Harbor near Woods Hole, Edgartown in Marthas Vinyard, Newport, RI and home. We have such a boat with no propane and no engine hot water heater. It worked very well.
This is how we used it.
Every morning when we were not cruising that day I would start the generator, a small 3.5 KW NextGen to make coffee and to recharge the batteries. I usually would run it for 15-30 minutes, maybe longer if the batteries were down. Then in the evening I would run it for 30 minutes or so to cook (well reheat mostly) anything on the stove for dinner and heat hot water. The batteries also recharged- more on that in another post.
So the average genset running time was about an hour daily. If I had a larger battery bank I could have used the inverter for coffee but since I needed to recharge batteries anyway why not use the genset.
Sure I need a generator to make this all work. Had the genset failed (and it sort of did half way through the trip with a plugged Racor filter) things would have been much tougher on board.
But the current set up works and the cost and effort to replace the stove, add a propane locker, plumb the engine's coolant to the water heater, just isn't worth it to me.
David
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