The stove debate continues...

[Merlin Clark]

Tony,
I was good with 1 on my butane and old Sea Cook stoves. I've had a 2 burner on a 35' boat and a 3 burner on a 41' and used 2 at a time then but that was living aboard with wife and daughter.
1 burner is fine for 1 pot meals or side dishes to go with the BBQ.
My 8 minute result with the alcohol stove wasn't much slower than our house stove with natural gas. I haven't cooked anything on it yet.

edit: liveaboard boats were both propane.

 

[FourPoints]

Thanx Merlin. Does a person really need 2 burners? I read that some people think that alcohol stoves don't get hot enough? Do they?

Hot enough to boil water, cook eggs, or anything you will need to use it for. Any actual differences there are, you won't notice.

 

[Sailm8]

I once took my Oreingo home and boiled a measured quart of water vs our electric range in the kitchen. Result was about 2 minutes longer to come to a rolling boil on the Oreingo.

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

My wife once cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us, on a one burner kero stove and a pressure cooker as an oven. If I could find another Seacook, rigged for kerosene, I'd buy it in a heartbeat

I currently use one of the small Butane stoves as was shown above, as do three of my friends on small boats. Works VERY well.

I also use a Bodum French press for coffee- including at home

Just do remember that Butane, like Propane, is heavier than air, so if it leaks it can settle in the bilge. Keep the cans outside when not in use.

As for alcohol, that's fine in the states, but in the Bahamas, a gallon of stove alcohol will cost you about 30 bucks. It's THE most expensive fuel going, for long time use..Fine for weekend sailing though.

 

[Tony E]

Thanx for the information Sailm8. Whats 2 minutes when you are trying to relax on your sailboat right? I just went out to the garage and fired up a just about new Coleman 2 burner stove and I think I am going to go with that. 1.) It gives off lots of heat. 2.) It is not propane so you just have to make sure that if you are cooking in doors that there is adequate ventilation but the heavy gas blowing up threat is gone. 3.) its cheap and even for a week trip I might have to take a half a gallon of fuel that can be stored outside in different containers say where the 5 gallon gas cans are? 4.) It easy to store/strap down/clean,etc. 5.) I am Canadian and Coleman products are in my blood I was seriously thinking propane with 1 lb cylinders but afater a week I would probably have 3 or 4 of them sitting around and where do you store them? I had a few cylinders spew out propane when I unscrewed them and they wouldn't stop. To avoid blowing up I threw them farrrrrrrr away into the lake in which they turned into little "propane spewing torpedoes" just going around in circles looking for a place to blow up and make somebody's day. When I go out camping for a week i usually take 2 stoves and cook up a huge breakfast with "all the fixins" and all 4 burners going. Maybe its just time to downsize and at the most make due with two. But I do agree with a previous post.....a good cup of Coffee in the morning is a must especially when you are waking up on a sailboat on a beautiful day. Any other thoughts ???

 

[Tony E]

Thanx TSBB 2 , I didn't know that about butane being like propane. Now I am even more convinced on my Coleman. Does anyone have any solar panels on their boat and if so what wattage? I am trying to figure out how many watts/panels I will need to set up to recahrge by batteries after a night of lights on, etc.

 

[Tony E]

I also have a 3 burner Coleman duel fuel stove. It burns on white gas and unleaded fuel? So maybe thats the way to go because you can always (usually) get unleaded fuel and usually at a good price. Thoughts?

 

[FourPoints]

Does anyone have any solar panels on their boat and if so what wattage? I am trying to figure out how many watts/panels I will need to set up to recahrge by batteries after a night of lights on, etc.

There are many people on these forums with solar, myself included. Search the forums a little and you'll find anything you want to know. You can see my setup on my sailing blog, link is below. Maine Sail is a fantastic resource for solar, and electrical in general, advise, so anything you find from him should be taken very seriously.

 

[Sumner]

We use a ...

...propane stove on the Mac ....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor/inside-13.html

..... and have used it for about 5 months of days/nights on the boat without a cylinder problem. Not saying we never will, but for us we won't be changing. You can buy them anywhere. We store them ....

...in the tubes at the back of the boat under the solar above to the left of the arrow and never even used that many on a 2 month cruise. The ...

...stove stores away conveniently.

We stay well ventilated when using the stove and keep the bottle we are using out in the cockpit at night and in one of the tubes underway.

Used the same stove and procedure on the Endeavour for a couple months before putting in new lines and a regulator and making sure the elect. solenoid was working properly. Now use the boat's stove, but carry the other one with us. If you only have the bottle in the boat when in use and for some reason you don't light it, but have it on your nose will tell you about it in a couple seconds ,

Sum

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]============================[/FONT]

Our Endeavour 37

Our MacGregor 26-S Pages

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

 

[Steve Dion]

To each his own, but using gasoline (any color) would be the last thing to use for cooking inside the boat.

 

[Chris Patterson]

I use propane, and have been doing it for years. Idiots blow up their boats with it, and so it should be.

And a Farberware percolator. 22 bucks.

I owned a 12 volt electric coffee maker once. At 4 cups, it took thirty minutes. What a monumental waste of time.

 

[zeehag]

i still have 2 coleman stoves for back up for my force 10 3 burner--i have run our of propane while at sea and needed to make coffee with the lil coleman until i got new refill in la cruz...they are most handy.

 

[sandpiper10471]

I do believe butane is lighter than air, making it safer than propane, along with the increased btu's.

 

[Bob 04 H260]

I do believe butane is lighter than air, making it safer than propane, along with the increased btu's.

I have heard this before more than once, in fact butane is almost twice as heavy as air. You may be thinking of natural gas, IIRC, most places NG is lighter than air but it is a mixture of gases depending on the supplier could vary some what.

We had a butane stove on our last boat. It was installed by the manufacturer (Hunter). It was mounted into a molded tray with a drain running to the outside of the boat so any leaked gas would go overboard and not into the bilge.

Bob

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

Nope- Using a specific gravity of air as 1.0, CNG is lighter than air (specific gravity=0.6).

Butane, and Propane are not.

Propane has a specific gravity of 1.53, Butane has a specific gravity of 2.0. It's actually HEAVIER than propane.

 

[tkanzler]

Good to know. Thanks.

It looks like butane canisters have to be stored outside as well as propane. I have some room in the fuel lockers on each side of the cockpit (wide open to the cockpit), which should make a nice place to store them.

 

[jibes138]

I've used coleman stoves camping with white gas, pressurized alcohol stoves, an Origo 3000, and a Tasco two burner with oven propane stove. I highly recommend the Origo over any of the others. Someone mentioned a gallon of alcohol in the bahamas at 30 bucks? A gallon of alcohol will last you for weeks of full time cruising. How much is a beer in the bahamas? The Origo is pretty foolproof, not much to ever go wrong with it. Get an extra canister or two and if you run out of fuel mid-meal you can just pop in a new canister so you don't try to fill a hot one. The Origo stove with oven is my next investment to replace my 28 year old Tasco propane. Or I may go with an Origo 3000 and install a microwave below it. I have never used the oven in 17 years.

 

[Tony E]

See how it always turns back to "how much is a beer in the Bahamas?"...ha ha. Anyway I think I am going to go with Coleman until I at least get out there on a few trips and get use to how everything works and then worry about what could work better or buying an alcohol strove. I think I am also going to use my solar/battery to aid my stove as much as possible and a good example of this would be an electric coffee pot/carafe for coffee in the morning as it will keep it hot for a long time. Tkanzer I sent you a pm asking you about your 99 - 26x and how you like it. Get back to me if you can

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

LOL- Last time I was in the Bahamas, a beer was $4 in the grocery store. $24 a six pack.

A liter of good rum was $7. I gave up beer-grin

 

[Tony E]

See we all learned something today and if it wasn't the weight of propane /butane then it was the cost of beer versus rum in the Bahamas mannnnnnn. Good job TSBB 2 What kind of sailboat do you have TSBB2?