Stove replacement
The boat came with a propane-powered stove and oven. This is very common on boats, as many people do not like to use a generator, and so use propane for cooking instead.
There are a couple of downsides to propane. First, you need to keep the tanks full. The boat has 4 propane tanks, so we had lots of reserve, but experience from our backyard barbeque was that the tank always seems to somehow get empty no matter how closely you monitor it (perhaps procrastination has something to do with this, but who knows).
Second, we don’t like cooking with radiant heat. We have used induction for over 20 years at home and on our previous boats, and really like it. Because the cooking surface does not generate the heat, it is safer than a radiant system. We first installed it in our house when our kids were small as a safety thing, and found we liked the way it performed. Like cooking with gas without the gas. We also don’t use an oven that often any more, these days anything that has to be cooked in an oven we cook with our air-fryer.
Therefore, we decided to replace the propane stove.
Removing the stove and associated hoses was fairly easy and was accomplished in less than an hour. After removing the stove, I was pleased to note that the cabinet was in good shape, and that I would not have to fabricate a slide-in replacement (this was a possibility). Our plan was to install a top rack to hold our portable induction cooktop, which would create a lower storage space we could use for our air-fryer and other small appliances.
Making a cabinet back was pretty simple, its just a piece of plywood that I painted white. I installed some cleats at the back of the cabinet to hold the back in place, and mounted the back with screws. I want this panel to be removable, as its always nice to be able to access stuff on a boat.
The induction tray was made out of solid cherry, as this is what I had at home, and it matched the existing cabinets. To build it, I made templates out of poster board on the boat so that I would have exact measurements to work with back in my shop. The induction tray was installed, and we used it just like this for a summer, as I did not yet have time to make doors for the cabinet.
The air-fryer and blender are held in place with wooden cleats screwed to the floor of the cabinet, and I plan to install some straps to keep things from moving around.
I made a set of cabinet doors over the winter from solid cherry. I matched the style of the existing doors as closely as I could. The cabinet doors were a rail and stile design with a raised panel, of which I have made many over the years. Once finished, I applied four coats of clear polyurethane.
Once the doors were installed, I used a shop-made jig to match the holes for the pulls. using one of the other galley doors, I drilled through the existing cabinet holes in one door to get an exact match for the jig.
New fridge
The fridge that came with the boat worked, but our experience the first summer was that it was tired. During the spring, everything was fine, but in June, July and August, when things got hot, the freezer would not hold temperature. We discovered this when we had to throw out some food that had thawed in the freezer.
One reason why the fridge may not have been working 100% is that the fridge is built-in to a cabinet on the side of the boat. Although this cabinet is vented, the system is passive and may simply not be dumping heat quickly enough to keep up with the compressor. To try to boost the effectiveness of the unit, I added four 12 volt fans to the cabinet. Two of these were placed on the floor vent to draw air into the cabinet, and two were placed at the top of the cabinet to blow hot air out. Even with these four fans running, the fridge could not keep up and again we lost food from the freezer. Since we are planning to do the loop, this situation is not acceptable. We will need our freezer in many places on the loop, and once we get south will have to deal with warm days most of the time. Repairing the unit would be expensive, since the refrigerant is an old type. The available refrigerant keeps changing every few years in an attempt to prevent ozone depletion, but each time they switch refrigerants, this makes it difficult to repair existing units. I guess it is better to use lots of energy making new refrigerators than risking leaks of the older refrigerants destroying ozone. Therefore, our best solution was to replace the fridge.
As with other projects, I find it best to replace boat parts with the closest match (same make and model). In my experience, the extra you sometimes have to spend makes up for ease of installation. Wires, hoses, hole patterns and sizes match up so you don’t have to buy extra parts to make it fit, and don't have to use all the boat-yoga positions making the swap. The old unit was a nova kool. Based on the cutout size and size of the old one, there were three nova cool models that we could choose to replace it. We went with the one we did for two reasons. First, the freezer was a pull out drawer. We have this style of freezer at home and like it a lot. Second, the compressor is at the bottom of the unit, and there is a built-in air circulation duct to the design at the bottom, along with a fan. Hopefully this should help with our hot-cabinet issue. If not, we still have the other cooling fans to help dump heat. As a future project, I may link these to the fridge system using a relay.
Once the old fridge was removed, I adjusted the wires to the top fans, and cleaned up some of the cabling in the back cabinet by removing as many "zombie" wires as I could. I then connected the necessary wires to the new fridge and slid it into place. The new fridge is an inch shorter than the old one, so I will need to make a filler piece in my shop. Will do this later, as I will need to remove the fridge again in a couple of weeks to complete an electronics upgrade, so I can install the filler strip at the same time.
Drinking water faucet
We wanted to have a drinking water system on the boat. On our previous boats, we always carried separate drinking water, rather than drinking the water stored in the boat's tank. On this boat, we did not want to do that as we wanted to maximize space. We also didn't want to catch something from the water. So I installed a drinking water system from Acuva. It consists of a charcoal filter, a UV sterilizer, and a custom faucet. All installed under the sink in a couple of hours. Everything fits with standard compression fittings (home depot). Although the flow rate is somewhat slow, it is plenty for drinking water and for filling the coffee maker.
