I took the Refrigeration
Ted: I must be a contrarian as I chose to go with the refrigeration and have been very happy about it. I do not like to sail from marina to marina and focus on trying to find the perfect anchorage. I was tired of feeding my spoiled chicken to the crabs and put a refrigeration unit in my box. I like the cold beer, the ice that I can make for myself, and being able to stay out a week at a time. Now I am limited by my water tank and my holding tank, but I can get much further and stay a lot longer with them than I could with a block or two of ice. I have two 13X43, 3.15 Amp, solar panels, so I can run my refrigerator full time on the hook and not worry too much about the juice. I also have two sets of six volt golf cart batteries wired each set in series as my house bank with a separate isolated starting battery. All that was far cheaper than any diesel generator I could locate. Do not get me wrong, I cannot stay out on the hook in the summer in south Florida without AC, but I saw that side of the decision as requiring a generator as well as the AC unit. That was not an equal trade-off financially. I cannot find a diesel generator for less than 8 or 9 thousand bucks, which puts the cost of AC at about 10K for me. That does not compare with the approximately one thousand bucks for the refrigerator, but actually closer to 3K with all the bells and whistles. I suppose the other consideration is that I have a condo in the marina, so I do not have to stay on the boat as much as some might. If I did, I would have seen the equation differently I am sure. Rodney, S/V Avanti H-336
