Dec. 22, 2004--Keeping Warm Aboard
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

	This photo shows MAGIC DRAGON's diesel heater hidden behind its radiator that doubles as a solid fuel fire place.

Every season in New Zealand as the cruising yachts arrive in the spring or before they leave in the fall, many of their crew suffer from the cold. After months and sometime years of cruising in low latitudes they find the occasional cold southerly winds that blast New Zealand hard to take. However Canadians, Swedes and others used to cruising in colder latitudes usually have some means to keep their boats warm, and they don't mind the cool nights and mornings.

Since we built MAGIC DRAGON to cruise on the west coast of British Columbia, we made sure that she is well insulated, and we installed a diesel heater in her main cabin. Yacht interiors have much smaller volume than houses, and if they are reasonably well insulated they are easy to keep warm. Heating systems, like other things, range from the primitive to the intricate and expensive. In our twenty-four footer, the pressure kerosene lantern and a similar pressurized radiant heater kept us comfortable even on winter overnights in B.C. Of course larger vessels can accommodate the latest technology in thermostatic heating and air conditioning. One Californian told us that he simply used an electric heater on his boat. But he stayed in the marina!

For MAGIC DRAGON we opted for a single central heater without any extras such as wet back, water circulation, radiators, pumps, fans and their electrical wiring. This way the heater is very simple, not dependent on electricity and water circulation. We have seven four-inch diameter Dorade ventilators on deck and by adjusting the main cabin ones into the wind and the end cabin ones away from the wind we get warm air circulating across the boat. Our stove has nine feet of four-inch smoke stack to give it adequate natural draft for clean fuel combustion.

Before we moved aboard we kept MAGIC DRAGON warm and dry during her first winter in Vancouver, and in 1970, when we flew to California for a few weeks in mid-winter, we left her anchored in Canoe Cove on Vancouver Island with the heater going. A friend boarded her every five days or so to refill the header tank. This was in the days before solar panels could top up the batteries of an unattended vessel. Over the years we have spent a few winters both in Canada and New Zealand, where we kept cozy aboard, and we often have found the heater useful during spring and fall. When we arrived in Panama from Mexico we lit the heater and went riding the motorcycle ashore for the day to dry up the horrible humidity aboard!

Here's the smoke stack on deck, with the plastic covers we use over the mast and sail cover to protect them from smoke.

The "Alaska" Dickinson pot burner stove that we used at first was made for Canadian outpost cabins and was a bit too big for a yacht. Even at minimum low fire it burnt a gallon of diesel fuel per day. On not-so-cold days we had to keep hatches and doors open. Eventually its black steel sheet metal body started to rust. In 1984, while back in Vancouver, we replaced it with the 1984 version of the Dickinson "Alaska" model. This one is smaller and made of SS with a brass top. However, to protect little kiddies from burning themselves, it has a SS shield that contains all the radiant heat. Also the new one came with fancy SS tools to clean the vaporizer, not a reassuring set of accessories. To make a long story short, after redesigning and making a new vaporizer and adding a radiator that doubles as a wood or coal heater, we have a good heater again, and this one can burn for twenty-four hours on half a gallon of diesel.

But installing a heater is not the only challenge where it comes to keeping a yacht warm. Condensation can be a real problem. We'd learned about it before we even built MAGIC DRAGON. We met a man who had hoped to spend some of his retirement aboard his new Brandlymar 35' fiberglass sloop--until he discovered that when winter came, the inside of his boat got so wet with condensation that he had to move back ashore. Some cruisers who tackled the Arctic and Antarctic have had to content themselves with wearing enough garments to survive in freezing temperatures because of the impossible icing of condensation on the interior of their vessels.

Condensation takes place where warm air meets cold surfaces. The air cools and drops the moisture that it can no longer retain. The problem accentuates when cooking or taking hot showers, because of the extra relative humidity of the air inside. In metal or solid fiberglass boats, even where only solid fiberglass and aluminum framed hatches are used, condensation around the exposed cold parts can be troublesome. Some cruisers we have met manage to minimize the problem by taping clear plastic below or even above the hatches to create a vapor barrier and an insulating air space. MAGIC Dragon's hatches are fiberglassed wood and its port lights are glazed with 1/2" plexiglass so that they do not offer such cold surfaces.

Although we are happy with a simple heating stove, there is no doubt that a sophisticated air conditioning system would have its advantages too, especially on larger yachts. In big interiors forced air or water radiators may be necessary to distribute the heat. Thermostat controls would take care of the too much or too little heat situations. With the sophistication comes cost, of course, initial and of maintenance. So it all boils down to taste and pocket book size.

The choice of heating system is a difficult one. Since we have the option to burn solid fuels, we have tried to use the wood fire. It is one way to keep warm, but we found that with the firewood came the bugs, the dust and dirty smoke. Difficult too to keep an even fire, it gets too hot or dies altogether while you are not looking. And we missed getting back aboard to a warm boat on cold days. As well as solid fuel stoves, many options are available for boats today, so it is overchoice here again. It's a choice that must be made carefully too. When a sailing catamaran exploded before leaving New Zealand a few weeks ago, the rumors had it that they had just bought a household type of LPG portable heater.

Nevertheless some form of heating makes for comfort aboard in cold weather. And while cruising, sooner or later we come to cool or cold places. As always, when shore people query us as to how we made out in a cold spell of weather, we know that in New Zealand, we are much more comfortable aboard than we'd be in their mostly unheated houses.