By Curt Epperson
My wife Mary and I cruise the Pacific Northwest in our 1984 Wauquiez Pretorien. We’re not racers, so we forego worrying about any “go-fast” gear; still, like most cruisers out there, we do like to be comfortable and we like fresh food and cold beverages.
Our boat has a refrigeration compressor and a vertical evaporator and we love it. Yet keeping perishable food cold without draining the batteries or without expensive upgrades is a challenge. Our compressor is not new, but it runs well. The original Wauquiez “ice box” is not super insulated, still it is acceptable. (As with a lot of older boats, it was not built with refrigeration in mind.) Our refrigeration compressor is the largest consumer of amps on our boat and unless we replace it or re-build the icebox we can’t change that. But instead of expensive modifications, we follow some simple rules to minimize the total load on our batteries.
Basically, we hoard the cold that the system produces to minimize the compressor run time. We treat the cold air like invisible gold. We try to make the system work as efficiently as possible. Call me kinky, but if the money we save gets us another two weeks of cruising this summer, I will take it. Here are the rules we follow.
1. Place everything that can be frozen in your freezer at home. Plan your meals and start the trip with frozen meat, frozen butter, etc. Keep everything else as cold as possible before leaving. Transport it to your boat in a large cooler. If possible, never put anything warm into your boat’s refrigerated compartment.
2. Pre-package items into meal-sized portions. Freeze chicken, hamburger, fish, etc. in separate zip-lock bags. (Don’t thaw a big chunk of meat to just use half of it and then put the rest back in the compartment.)
3. Arrange things so everything you need to use at one time comes out quickly. Store items that are used together in a plastic container or bag in one easily accessible spot (sandwich meats, condiments, salad items, dressings, etc.). That way, you can remove and replace the complimentary items quickly. Don’t waste time digging around to find the ketchup, mustard, relish, etc.
4. Don’t keep items out any longer than necessary. Avoid letting a cold item get warm.
5. Designate one person to stow and to retrieve items. That person can quickly locate and replace items when they are needed. That person can develop his or her own efficient system.
6. Carefully load the refrigerated compartment. If there is difficult to reach space in the bottom put something frozen there, like a gallon (or two) of water in plastic jugs. (You can drink the water when it thaws. It is an acceptable beverage should you somehow run out of beer.) Put your frozen meat items above that, stacked together. Arrange the frozen meats so they can be removed one at a time in order of consumption.
7. Don’t put things like beer, soda pop, fruit juice, etc. in the refrigerator. Put drinks in an ice-chest below deck, out of the sun. (We put our ice chest under the main salon table and then we cover it with a thick towel or blanket.) We don’t waste the cold from our refrigerator getting drinks frequently during the day. (Important: If possible, negotiate for the entire use of your ice chest to keep the beer cold and stick the rest of the stuff somewhere else.) In our cool northwest waters, drinks kept under the floorboards stay at 50 to 55 degrees. That’s plenty cold for fruit drinks and other non-essential fluids
8. Place a towel over the top of the frozen items. This will help keep warm air off them while you retrieve other things. We find that chicken, hamburger, etc. will stay frozen for up to five days if carefully packed. Each day we just take out what we will eat and let it thaw (in our ice chest if possible so it helps keep that beer cold).
9. Put milk and any other highly perishable items close to the evaporator. When you take it out, pour what you will need into a thermos. Don’t let the milk carton sit out on the counter since it will warm up. (Note: For trips in Alaska, you may ignore this rule.)
10. Put your fresh fruit, lettuce, vegetables, etc. on top of all the other items in the compartment. Spread them out so they cover the area below. A bag or two of pre-chopped salad mix, a bag of romaine, or some sprouts, makes a great insulator on top of all the other cold food. (This is actually one of the few good uses I have found for salad greens.)
11. If you have an evaporator compartment that will freeze things, fill it up. Put some frozen meat in the bottom and then fill the top with a couple “blue ice” packets. Use the hard-sided ones, not the bags since the bags expand and can be difficult to remove. Try to create as much of a “cold sink” in the freezer as possible. (The blue ice will reduce compressor run-time while at
anchor and then re-freeze when you are motoring or at a marina). Our icebox doesn’t keep ice cream hard, so we don’t try that. (Tough duty, but someone just has to eat that entire pint of Cherry Garcia right away.)
12. Fill up the refrigerator (but not so much you have to take out everything to get at what you want). It is inefficient to try and cool empty air space.
13. Cycle the blue-ice packs back and forth from the evaporator freezer compartment to your ice-chest. If you will be motoring or recharging at a marina, swap a thawed ice pack from your ice-chest for a frozen one from the freezer. (If you do this, the ice in your ice chest will last much longer.)
14. Once the refrigerator is packed the way you want it, place a towel on top of everything inside. When you get something out just fold the towel partly back. This prevents warm air from completely infiltrating the refrigerated compartment. Make sure the towel covers the evaporator (but don’t separate the evaporator from the rest of the compartment.)
15. If possible, cover the outside top of the refrigerated compartment. For us, two boat cushions fit perfectly. The insulating effect of the cushions really helps reduce the number of compressor cycles, especially on a hot day. Never let the sun shine directly on the top of the compartment. (Just placing a white towel over it will help a lot if the compartment is located where the sun might shine on it.)
All this may seem like a rigid regimen but we are able to keep our total amp consumption (including lights, instruments, etc.) down to 35 to 45 ah per 24 hours when we are careful with the refrigerator. (That compares to 55 to 60 ah if we are not careful.) For our boat, the power savings means another day swinging quietly on our anchor in some beautiful bay before we have to think about recharging batteries. Just keep in mind that the goal is to save money and enjoy cruising. When our compressor eventually stops working (we hope not soon) we will upgrade the whole system and rebuild and thoroughly insulate the compartment. But in the meantime, we would rather be cruising than working to pay for modifications that are not yet totally necessary.
Curt and Mary Epperson have over 20 years of experience cruising in the Pacific Northwest.
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