[rsford]

I had one installed on a Pacific Seacraft Orion back in the late 80's. It was a very attractive Webasto stainless unit that mounted in the cabin on a bulkhead. It ran on propane and had a very nice stainless chimney that went up through the cabin house. It worked great for hot showers and hot water in galley and easily got the water hot enough to burn the skin if not careful -- you had to mix the output with cold water and get it flowing just right before hopping in. Then there were some press reports about a very well known woman sailor who died from carbon monoxide from such a unit -- I think I recall that hers was mounted in a small head. Seems like a CO-detector could have prevented her death, but I never saw much advertising for instant hot water heaters for boats after that. I sold that boat a couple of years later, and my next boat was a 37 which has a regular hot water heater system.