Dry Ice....

[Jackdaw]

Yeti created a revolution in coolers in 2006, and theirs, and their imitators', are far superior to what had gone before, and compared to garden variety, inexpensive coolers like Coleman. Seriously, the Coleman 36 quart cooler is $27. at Wal-Mart. The Yeti Tundra 35 quart cooler is almost ten times the price at $249. And there''s a world of difference in performance, too.

Totally true. The fun part is that anyone who buys a Yeti helps pay for Jodi's summer wardrobe.... Yeti's marketing spend (paid for by product markup) is crazy. At least once a summer here Yeti sponsors an event, and pretty much every pretty girl at the place ends up with a Yeti hat, tee-shirt, and a $30 can coozy.

RTIC the same product without the marketing.

 

[Hayden Watson]

Dry ice is only suitable for deep freezing food. I is -109ºF so everything will be solid. I have used it often for long cruises to extend the frozen food we take. I take a good quality cooler and line all sides with the foil-faced bubble wrap insulation. I then pack in all of my frozen food and place the largest block of dry ice I can get. I found a supplier that could get me single 20lb blocks. on top of that I pack loosely crumpled news paper to fill the cooler to the top so that there was no open space. On previous boats that only had ice boxes, I would freeze gallons of milk for a week prior to cruise in the home chest freezer and load that into the ice box for ice and the cooler for replacement ice. As I used the contents of the dry ice cooler, I would add more crumpled paper to keep it full. Doing this I would celebrate day 5 of the cruise with a pint of ice-cream. and my ice box would stay cold for 7 days without buying additional ice.

 

[jviss]

RTIC the same product without the marketing.

Well, if after-purchase support is part of the "product," which I think it is, then maybe not. See Maine Sail's comment about his brother's after purchase support experience with RTIC.

 

[walmsleyc]

I've used dry ice before. It made things in the ice box, like apples, taste awful ... sort of carbonated, tingly ... but definitely unpleasant. Everything needs to be in a sealed container. Legend 35 coolers are very big and deep, and require almost diving in to reach the stuff at the bottom. Doing so with dry ice in there leaves you very light headed and feeling queezy (oxygen depravation) even if only in there for 15 seconds.

 

[Benny17441]

Pre-cooked frozen meals serve two purposes, facilitates the preparation task and helps the refrigerator/freezer in maximizing space and reducing energy consumption. There are many items we are used to put in the refrigerators that do not require refrigeration like eggs. Canned perishables and cured meats do not require refrigeration. Have not found a helping solution for warm beer.

 

[jviss]

Have not found a helping solution for warm beer.

I have a dream - that someday, someone will develop a beer chilling technology, a chemical cooler, so that when you pop the top of a can of your favorite beer, it will immediately chill it to the ideal drinking temperature.... I have a dream....

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

Have not found a helping solution for warm beer.

IPA was originally intended to be served cool, not cold. I prefer cold but do enjoy it at bilge temperature (dry bottle or can, sans bilge water)

 

[NYSail]

Our boat has a very adequate freezer and ok frig. Plenty of room especially when you stop and replenish along the way. But in this age of Covid wife and I are hanging on the hook in quiet locations. She is a great cook and makes wonderful meals so this year we are packed different than previous years. She was intent on trying dry ice so yesterday she got some. Insulated the cooler, news paper and even some foam sheets. Put certain meats and cheeses in..... and the grand daughters ice cream. Will report back.
personally I am focused on my projects over the next couple weeks.... getting ais working, solar connected, change all blocks and a couple other things...... including eating real good. life is good!

Greg

 

[thinwater]

The enthalpy of sublimation of CO2 is 180% of ice enthalpy of fusion. You will use about 70% (not direct conversion because of the temperature difference) of the dry ice you will regular ice, and the chest will be colder.

A person exhales about 2.3 pounds of CO2, but they don't stay below decks. If you use 6 pounds of ice per day that's less than 2 people breathing. With summer ventilation CO2 accumulation in a boat sounds like a myth. In the winter, with little ventilation, you don't need a cooler. AC could change the math... but you would be using refrigeration.

 

[Terry Cox]

What worked for us in the large cooler of our first boat was to lay down a bed of bag ice followed by a brick of dry ice then bag ice on top to seal it. That would last us for almost one and a half to two weeks. The dry ice would turn the bag ice into a solid block helping to insulate the evaporation of the dry ice. The dry ice would evaporate after about five to seven days leaving the bag ice to slowly melt after about four to six days.

 

[MikeHoncho]

The enthalpy of sublimation of CO2 is 180% of ice enthalpy of fusion. You will use about 70% (not direct conversion because of the temperature difference) of the dry ice you will regular ice, and the chest will be colder.

A person exhales about 2.3 pounds of CO2, but they don't stay below decks. If you use 6 pounds of ice per day that's less than 2 people breathing. With summer ventilation CO2 accumulation in a boat sounds like a myth. In the winter, with little ventilation, you don't need a cooler. AC could change the math... but you would be using refrigeration.

I’m thinking 2 lbs of a exhaled gas (Assuming that is over 24hrs?) and 2 lbs of a ultra condensed frozen gas are not comparable considering expansion ratios when it sublimates. It’s too early and I’m lazy to look it up. Time frames of the two might bring it back to comparison possibly.

 

[Hayden Watson]

I’m thinking 2 lbs of a exhaled gas (Assuming that is over 24hrs?) and 2 lbs of a ultra condensed frozen gas are not comparable considering expansion ratios when it sublimates.

Mass is mass. The density changes but it is still two pound-mass.

 

[MikeHoncho]

Your correct about mass. The but we are talking about a products harm in a gas phase not solid. When it displaces another gas expansion ratios are everything. Got a cup of coffee and looked it up. 532:1! Your 2 lbs exhausted co2 is in gas form so 2 lbs, no change. My 2 lbs of dry ice will sublimate (over time) 532 times. Same mass, massively larger area. This is not good with a displacement or flammable gas like LPG. This is why you want a LPG leak to be gas (what you have is what you have) compared to a liquid LPG leak (what you have is what you have plus 270x which is its expansion ratio).

 

[Davidasailor26]

Got a cup of coffee and looked it up. 532:1! Your 2 lbs exhausted co2 is in gas form so 2 lbs, no change. My 2 lbs of dry ice will sublimate (over time) 532 times. Same mass, massively larger area

The dry ice spreads out to a much larger volume than in its solid state, yes, but in the air of the boat it will still be the same concentration as the 2 pounds I exhale. Whether I exhale 2 pounds or you sublimate 2 pounds, there are still about 20 moles (20*6.02*10^23 molecules) in the boat. Your 2 pounds just started out as a smallish cube, whereas mine started out as oxygen in the air and carbon in my cells).

(I think; it’s been a while since chemistry class.)

 

[MikeHoncho]

How long are you saying it take to exhale two pounds of co2 and I didn't take chemistry.

 

[Davidasailor26]

How long are you saying it take to exhale two pounds of co2 and I didn't take chemistry.

Google seems to say humans exhale 2.3 pounds per day. Not sure what thinwater’s source was as he posted the quantity originally.

 

[walt]

The enthalpy of sublimation of CO2 is 180% of ice enthalpy of fusion. You will use about 70% (not direct conversion because of the temperature difference) of the dry ice you will regular ice, and the chest will be colder.

Earlier in this thread there was a link to a test with three identical ice chests all with the same weight of ice or dry ice put in them. The chests with ice stayed cool longer than the dry ice. It must be that the transfer of energy through the chest is proportional to the difference in temp inside to ambient. Since the dry ice chest was colder, there was a larger temp delta and hence a higher energy loss rate through the insulation.

 

[thinwater]

Your correct about mass. The but we are talking about a products harm in a gas phase not solid. When it displaces another gas expansion ratios are everything. Got a cup of coffee and looked it up. 532:1! Your 2 lbs exhausted co2 is in gas form so 2 lbs, no change. My 2 lbs of dry ice will sublimate (over time) 532 times. Same mass, massively larger area. ...

No. Just no. 2 pounds is 2 pounds and the molar volume is the same. High school chemistry. If you didn't take chemistry, why state facts about chemistry?

The exhale estimate was over 24 hours. I should have stated that. Anyone could Google that.

BTW, a person will deplete oxygen. CO2 will dilute but not deplete. Not terribly important, since CO2 becomes a problem long before oxygen depletion.

However, the real point is that boats in the summer, using ice, are almost always very well ventilated, with an air change every few minutes and hundreds per day. I seriously doubt you could measure the sublimed CO2 or the exhale. Seriously cold wqeather, yes, but then you just leave the cooler in the cockpit and hope something thaws.

 

[Rick Webb]

I drove an ice cream truck while in high school. Our set up was a Datsun pickup with a regular ice cream chest freezer mounted in the bed. At night we plugged it in during the day while out on the road we used I think 5# of dry ice they were cut off a block about 5" X 8" and sliced to about 1/2" distributed across the packages in the freezer. You could definitely taste it in the Drumsticks and Creamsicles. Some of my regulars had favorite flavors of Popsicles and I would stash them in the back corner at the bottom of the freezer. There were several occasions were it took a while to find them and I would come up a little lightheaded. A few years later while in flight school I got the exact same feeling going through the altitude chamber.

There is no way I'd have a cooler with dry ice inside my boat. In the cockpit sure go for it. While CO2 does not have the same affinity to your hemoglobin as CO it will still get you hypoxic make you stupid and then make you dead before you are aware of the affect it is having upon you.

 

[MikeHoncho]

Google seems to say humans exhale 2.3 pounds per day. Not sure what thinwater’s source was as he posted the quantity originally.

Yea that’s what I found too. He’s right though, a pound of feathers is the same weight as a pound of bricks. I took a ride on my bike and pondered it a little more. Time weighted averages can easily throw a wrench into it with a larger sum of ice (I’m thinking most don’t buy just 2lbs) and a poor cooler allowing it to convert at a higher rate but that’s for another discussion.