As a Frugal Boater you can still enjoy comfort. Even in the heat of a Key West summer. In the three years since our last Keeping It Cool, there have been some changes.
Category: Frugal Boater
Frugal Boater: Porta-Bote Refit
Why a Porta-Bote
We love our old Porta-Bote dinghy. She folds flat so we can store her against the lifelines if we don’t want her on the davits. She’s done everything we’ve asked, and we’ve asked a lot. More than once she’s delivered us safely through small craft advisories and four foot seas. She carries amazing amounts of groceries, water and equipment. While her speed isn’t on par with the 25hp dinghies, she does pretty well with her 6hp and uses less gas. But at 10 years old, and after four years of hard daily use and abuse, she was showing her age.
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Frugal Boater: The Cost of Living on a Boat
What does it cost to live on a boat?
People are often curious about what it costs to live on a boat. As a Frugal Boater I’d love to give them the clear answer they seek, but asking what it costs to live on a boat is no different than asking what it costs to live in a house. Really! It varies that much because we’re all different. So first, let’s have a look at the major expenses of living.
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Frugal Boater: Sail Cover Boat Name
Adding your boat name to your sail cover
I have always liked the look of boats with a sail cover boat name. Since our sails and sail covers were off, it seemed like a good time to do something I had wanted to do for a while. Of course being a Frugal Boater I had to find a way to do it myself. Although the process was a little slow, it was fairly straight forward and simple.
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Frugal Boater: Keeping it Cool
Although we have air conditioning on Pearl Lee, being a Frugal Boater, we don’t often go to marinas and don’t want to run the generator and air conditioner 24×7. Any HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) professional worth his salt will tell you that three factors effect our comfort. Air temperature, humidity and velocity. Without running the air conditioner we can’t control the first two, so let’s work on the third, velocity.
Frugal Boater: Pearl Lee Solar Power 2.0
On Pearl Lee we make our own electricity, mostly from solar power. Occasionally, after Pearl Lee Solar Power 1.0, we found ourselves falling a bit short of our needs and supplementing our solar power with a generator. This was mainly during the short days of winter, but also during periods of high use. We don’t have an “electricity budget” as many cruisers do. My goal is to have enough solar power without any worries. Hence, Pearl Lee Solar (PLS) 2.0.
Our PLS 1.0 configuration consisted of two Hyundai 280 watt solar panels wired in series and mounted on our dinghy davits (hanging over the back of the boat). Power from these went through a Midnite Solar Classic 150 controller which charged our eight golf cart batteries with nearly 900 amp hour capacity.
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Frugal Boater: Solar Charge Controller Basics
You’ll need a charge controller with all but the smallest of solar panels. A charge controller goes between the solar panels and the batteries. It’s job is to limit, or control, the power your panels put into your batteries. This keeps you from destroying expensive batteries by overcharging. There are two types charge controllers.
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Frugal Boater: Solar Panel Basics
A solar panel converts solar energy to electricity. Solar panels are made up of a collection of silicon wafers called “cells”, wired internally to get the required power and voltage. Ideally, every solar panel in your system should be exactly the same. In our case they are not, but they’re “close enough” since our old and new panels are all 280 watt, 60 cell panels. If you’re in Florida, I recommend shopping for your solar panels at Sun Electronics in Miami for great prices and selection.
Frugal Boater: Batteries Replacement Day
Today, we replaced our “house” batteries. These batteries are to us, what the electric company is to “normal” folks. They store all the power from our solar panels, and supply ALL of our electricity for lights, information, entertainment, and even cold beer.
What does this picture represent?
Frugal Boater: A Household Refrigerator For Our Sailboat
Our old Norcold 6.5 cubic foot front load refrigerator was slowly on it’s way to the graveyard. Mind you, it was at least 10 years old, so it’s hard to blame Norcold. The 12v board burned out, so we were running it on an inverter. We couldn’t get parts for such an old model. We noticed the seals were leaking causing excessive frost build up. It was using at least double the power it should. We determined it was past due for a replacement.
Finding a Frugal Boater alternative
After looking at direct replacements from Norcold and others we found it hard to justify $1400 – $2500 for a 6.5 cubic foot refrigerator. It was time to get creative.
After lots of measuring and internet shopping we found that 9.9 cubic foot home refrigerators had a pretty standard form factor and would just barely fit the space we had. We spent a lot of time measuring, planning and calculating.
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