Cooking Fuels: Propane

It seems that the holy grail of cooking fuels on a boat, according to most cruisers, is propane! It can be fed into a stove/oven that is gymbaled, allowing you to cook effortlessly while underway and bake dinner evenly without fear of burning anything. Propane is a favorite as it burns cleanly and lights instantly. 

The problems with propane are the cost of filling your tanks, the methods to store it, and any leaks it might have in your boat. 

Propane sinks, so if it leaks out of its tank or any of the lines to the stove, it could potentially sink into the bilge. The next spark that occurs will blow the boat to splinters! To avoid this, propane is always stored in lockers that have a drain overboard and no communication with the rest of the boat. This lets any fumes vent overboard and away from the bilge. 

Propane is stored typically in metal cans, and metal on an ocean going yacht is going to rust! They do make composite tanks that are impervious to rust, but many filling stations do not trust them and will not fill your tank. 

Aside from storing the propane, you also need to worry about getting it into your tank! Sadly, the valves used on the tanks are not universal, so if you plan on doing international cruising, you might find it difficult to get the station to adapt to your valve and fill your tank. 

Lastly, there is typically an electronic solenoid that cuts off the fuel flow of propane to the stove. You need to have a manual way of bypassing this solenoid so that if the solenoid were to fail, you will still have the ability to cook and eat well while cruising. 

Propane has its drawbacks, but luckily it seems to be such a popular fuel that everyone has it and has worked the kinks out of the system. This means that someone in your anchorage will probably know how to repair the system and have parts that you might be missing to get your cooking going again. 

Anchor Kettle

Anchors need to be pulled laterally along the sea floor to set and hold well on the bottom. This requires considerable weight of the anchor rode to produce the catenary curve within the specified scope.

When using all rope rodes, more scope is needed to achieve the same lateral pull. A common rule of thumb is 5:1 scope for all chain, 7:1 scope for all rope. Since the goal is to have more weight in the system, the idea of adding weight along the rode came to be. This was the birth of the anchor kettle.

An anchor kettle is nothing more than a weight tied into the rope rode. It hangs on the rope and pulls it downward. This in turn causes the rode leading to the anchor to pull at a lower angle and would nessecitate a shorter scope! 

In theory, this works well, but in practice, it leaves much to be desired. 

The first problem with an anchor kettle is that it causes additional wear in the line. When the weather is calm, the kettle will fall to the bottom and the rope that runs between the anchor and kettle will lay on the sea floor and chafe away as it moves around. 

When the wind begins to blow, the yacht will be pushed back and the kettle will begin to do its job. It will hold the line down in the water and keep the rode from it to the anchor at a low angle. The line from it to the boat will proceed up at a steep angle. This is precisely what they sell it to you as, and this is the only time it will work like this. 

When the wind really begins to blow, the rode will become tight and the kettle will be lifted up. All of a sudden, anchoring with a shorter scope becomes a problem as the anchor will not b able to hold as well. The kettle is hanging on the line, but the line is pulled taught as the yacht is pushed back with the surge of the wind and waves. 

In addition to the problem with the scope being too short and the kettle merely hanging lifeless on the rode, you have the issue with the weight of the kettle in the line. When the yacht relaxes, the kettle will sink down a bit. When the yacht is pushed back with a wave, the kettle will be flung upwards and its mass will continue to yank upwards as the rode becomes taught. This upward jerking motion will actually work to unset the anchor and cause it to drag! 

Anchor kettles are a cool concept, but they do not provide the benefits that they claim and actually harm your anchors ability to hold when the weather deteriorates, which is when you need to count on your anchor the most! If you are looking at an anchor kettle to allow you to anchor with all rope rode, consider investing the cost of the rope and kettle into a good chain rode that will provide you with the needed weight and catenary curve to hold well in all conditions. 

Types of Chain

In the world of anchor chains, there are a few key players. All of these chains will be labeled with a number or letter stamped into the links metal. If you do not see any markings, the chain could be a cheap knockoff that might not be built to the same rigorous standards. 

Chain also comes in a few materials, mainly consisting of galvanized or stainless steel. We will be focusing on galvanized chain in this post. 

There are three main types of chain: Proof Coil, BBB, and High Tensile strength chain. 

Proof Coil is by far the cheapest and weakest of the chains. The links in this chain are made from carbon steel and covered in a protective galvanized coating to ward off corrosion. Proof coil is identifiable by the markings PC, PC3, G3, or Grade 30. Upon construction, the chain is stressed to its breaking strength and then inspected every 10 links. It is not calibrated to work with the wildcat on windlasses, so it might not be as easy to retrieve as you might have hoped. 

BBB is the next step up. Also made of carbon steel, it is inspected at each and every link upon testing. This means that the chain is strong and checked throughly before it reaches you, the consumer. The links in BBB are uniform and it will work with a wildcat on your windlass! Identifying marks on BBB chain are: BBB, and 3B. It tends to have the same weight per foot as PC chain, but it will work in your windlass and it was inspected more throughly before you bought it. 

Hgh Tensile chain is made from heat treated and high tensile strength carbon-manganese alloy. It is much stronger than regular carbon steel, so a chain of the same strength can be made of much smaller links. This means that the chain will weigh less per foot and will upset your displacement and balance much less when fully loaded.

HT chains are marked as Grade 40, G4, and G43. These are manufactured under the same rigorous testing of BBB chain, but you get a much lighter product with the same strength. Higher strength chain is marked as Grade 70, G70, and G7. This chain is very light and very strong, offering the best strength to weight ratio. This will allow you to carry hundreds of feet of rode in your bow without weighing your bow down into the water. 

While HT chains are favorable with their weight reductions, they do have one draw back over BBB, and that is the heat treatment that gives it strength. When a chain needs to be re-galvanized, the heating of the galvanization can damage the heat treatment of the chain. Grade 40 and 43 chain is more resistant to the process, but Grade 70 is very delicate and can loose its strength by regalvanizing. 

Anchor Rode Materials

When you think about anchoring, you probably just picture the anchor falling to the bottom and grabbing on with its flukes, and then the anchor rode holding the boat to the anchor. The anchor doesn't move, and neither does the boat! Simple!  

The truth is very far from this ideal mental image of anchoring. There are materials and calculations that need to take place for the anchoring to work successfully. 

While the anchor itself is an important topic for discussion, we will ignore the different brands and styles of anchors out there and simply picture the perfect anchor (whichever anchor you wish that to be) and simply focus on how the anchor is connected to the yacht. 

Boats have ropes on them! So naturally, the first material of thought for an anchor rode would be nylon line. It is both stretchy and strong, so why not tie the anchor rode to the anchor using an "anchor hitch" and all it a day! Nylon rode has the advantage of stretch, but it is very succeptible to chafe. There is little chafe as the line runs through the water, but considerable chafe as the line meets the anchor.  

The anchor lives on the bottom of the sea floor, and the shank is usually in very close proximity to this area. This means that the rode will be laying on the sea bed as well and will rub against many items that can chafe through the line. 

To alleviate this issue, a length of chain can be added between the anchor and the rope, this will take the brunt of the chafe like a champion, and allow the rope to complete the journey up to the vessel. Chain adds considerable weight to the system as well, and weight near the shank will help pull the shank parallel to the bottom and aid the flukes to dig in and hold well. 

If a little chain is good, why not make the entire system out of chain! This would be by far the strongest system, and also the heaviest. The weight of the chain suspended between the bow and the anchor will form a catenary curve that will help pull laterally on the anchor and keep it dug into the bottom. 

Chain is not elastic though, and the only elasticity in the system will come from the catenary curve being consumed as wind and waves push the bow back in a surge. As the bow pushes aft, the curve will flatten out and then the weight will pull the bow forward again until the curve is re-established. This works well for moderate to light conditions, but in heavy conditions, this curve will be blown straight and the shock loads will be transmitted to everything in the system. To prevent the cyclical and damaging shock loads, a nylon snubber can be tied between the bow and the rode, taking the force of the last few feet of the rode and offering some much needed elasticity. 

Your choices are very simple when deciding what type of rode to employ. You can either use all rope, rope and chain combination, or all chain. Naturally, the longevity and price will go hand in hand. Rope is the cheapest and will last only a number of years, while chain will be the most expensive and will last decades if well cared for. 

Showering while Cruising

When cruising, your contact with other people will be much more limited. When you do meet people, it will also be with plenty of space between you two. This lack of contact and airy contact when it does occur makes it easy to simply not shower! 

People who live on land are used to showering at least once a day, if not more often than that. On a cruising boat, where water is brought out to the boat in 5 gallon jugs, water is not used so sparingly! This means that a daily shower would necessitate more frequent water tank fillings, which is much more work for the cruiser.  

As always, there is a simple solution to the problem! If you shower more, you need more water. If you shower less, you need less water! We have asked many cruisers and it seems that a weekly shower is the norm. If you feel dirty or smelly in a few days, you will soon go nose blind to it and more days will pass before you realize that it is already shower day again! 

When you meet people, the space between you buffers any potential offending odors. The constant breeze also helps keep the air clear of any unwanted scents that may linger around the cruiser. If someone catches a whiff of you and it is soon shower day, you will then receive the much needed slack as they remember that you live on a boat! They might think you smell a bit and figure that you haven't showered yet today, but the truth is that you haven't showered in days and you will get a free pass! 

Cruising and showering are two sides of the same coin, but the cruising side of the coin lands up much more often than the sower side of the coin.