Snowpocalypse

Crazy Snowpocalypse is on its way, and many people have been asking me how I plan to fair on the boat.  What will you do for heat? Won’t you go crazy?  There’s something romantic about being stuck in a little boat with the love of your life, keeping warm, snuggling, and watching movies…but not for three straight days.  Most of the preparations on my end included selecting movies and gathering things to keep myself occupied.  I’m the kind of person who can do nothing for a day and feel rested, but if I do nothing for three straight days, I will indeed go nuts.  

Thankfully, Herby’s got the heat situation figured out.  We have four methods of heating our little home: base boards, space heaters, reverse cycle, and the diesel heater.  The baseboards are the weakest and the space heaters become useless if we lose electricity.  The reverse cycle no longer works as soon as the water temperature dips below 38 degrees F.  This leaves the good old diesel, which heats the boat steadily and strongly and provides warm flickering fire and calming whirring sounds as a bonus.  So, that’s the answer to the heating question.     

Tackling the issue of going stir crazy is a little less obvious and depends on who you are.  Herby, for instance, is an introvert, and would be fine spending months on end completely alone in a tiny boat.  He’ll be working on various projects involving rope and weird looking tools: nothing out of the ordinary.  I on the other hand am an extrovert.  I could never be alone on a boat, but luckily I don’t have to be!  Herby will always be within a 35-foot radius of me.  Luckily, this excites him too or we’d have problems.  

The boat doesn’t exactly lend itself to a lot of movement and physical activity, so I have my yoga mat.  Yoga is an excellent way to both clear your mind and keep those muscles active.  The same thing applies for a long excursion during which you may not touch land for many days.  It sure beats jogging in place at least.  

Herby and I love games, so we have a few games on the boat that keep our minds exercised and challenged.  I strongly recommend games as a pastime with your partner, even if you’re not on a boat.  It’s intellectually stimulating and can be funny as well as competitive.  A little competition never hurt anyone…except me on the inside every time I lose at anything.  Anyway, games are way better than watching TV.  That being said, we did download a ton of movies to watch during this blizzard.  I plan to do a lot of art while we watch.  

You may or may not know that I am an artist.  Therefore, in order to prepare for a weekend trapped indoors, I brought a ton of paints, brushes, and canvases to the boat.  I’ll do another post about being an artist on a boat, but I plan to make good use of my time this weekend by completing at least three paintings!  (By the way, I do commissions if you’re interested.)  --> Shameless self promotion…

Anyway, we definitely plan to keep ourselves very warm and occupied during this storm, just as we do during long trips at sea.  Just like everything about living on a boat, you’ve got to have an open mind!          

Grilling

The grill is the best addition to the galley when cooking aboard. Entire dinners can be prepared on it, and it uses minimal space and resources. 

I recommend a good propane grill, such as Magma. The fuel source is easy to buy and store since it is in compact cans. If you have a dedicated propane locker, you can easily connect the grill to your large tank. If you don't, you can store your small camping size cans in a 4 inch PVC pipe on deck or in a well ventilated area.

I would caution away from using a charcoal grill because they are rather messy. When I was a kid, we used a charcoal grill. The food that came off of it was delicious, but the work involved with it was equally extravagant. The charcoal needs to flame up and burn down to embers, which can take a rather long time when you are hungry. After you finish grilling, you need to let it burn out and then dispose of all the ash. It can quickly become a very messy job on board a boat. 

Another reason to avoid charcoal is the fuel source is rather large. A bag of charcoal takes up much more space than a small camping can of propane. If you were planning a long voyage, it would be very difficult to store and carry all those bags of charcoal. It would be much easier to store a bunch of small cans, and a lot cleaner too!

Lastly, an unconfirmed issue with charcoal deals with spontaneous ignition. Apparently salty charcoal can spontaneously ignite. I don't know if this is true or not, but I would not want to find out on board my own boat. 

I would suggest splurging a bit when you buy the grill, there is a significant difference in build quality and longevity between the different tiers. I bought the Catalina Grill from Magma 2 years ago and it has been wonderful. It can get incredibly hot inside while not radiating heat outside. I set it on its legs in the cockpit (painted fiberglass) and the surrounding seat and backrest are cool to the touch. I have even used it during the snow, it cooked steaks beautifully and didn't melt the snow below or behind it.

Heat During the Winter

When patients find out I live on a sailboat, one of the first questions I get is: "How do you stay warm in the winter?" Once again, I feel they think I live in this:

So how do we keep warm in the winter? We turn on the heat!

On board Wisdom, we have four different heat sources.

Heat Pump (through the reverse cycle air conditioner)
Hydronic Baseboards
Electric Space Heaters
Diesel Fireplace

The heat pump is the easiest to use, it runs all the time as long as the water temperature is warm enough. It cools the raw water that the boat floats in to heat the air in the boat. This works for a while, but when the water gets too cold (like it is right now), we switch it off and rely on our other heat sources.

The hydronic baseboards provide a surprising amount of heat. They are plumbed to a circulation pump that flows water from the water heater in a circuit. This draws water from the water heater through the baseboards and then returns it to the water heater to be warmed once more. I have the water heater set to 180F to provide enough heat for the baseboards. The baseboards location is critical, as it greatly affects their efficiency. One is located in the salon, the other by the V Berth in the bow. These provide safe heat that we can leave on when we leave the boat for the day, keeping the boat above freezing while we are away. These provide heat, but only while we are plugged into shore power. 

Our next line of defense against the cold is our electric space heaters. We carry two on board Wisdom, since electronics tend to fail when you need them most. One is from Walmart and cranks out some serious heat, the other is "The Cube" from West Marine and will make your skin burn if you are too close to it! These electric space heaters can help heat a small space, but they struggle to heat the whole boat, especially on windy days.

Our last, and most effective source of heat is our Dickinson diesel heater. We have the Newport, bulkhead mounted model. It has a 3 inch chimney running right through the deck to vent out its exhaust. When it is burning properly, there is little to no soot and it provides plenty of heat. It is fed via gravity tank which will keep it fed and burning for over a day. 

We usually keep the air conditioner set to 70F during the winter, which keeps the boat nice and comfortable. The diesel is not as easy to regulate temperature since its settings correspond to how much fuel flows through it. When it's burning, the whole boat will stay in the temperature range of 80F to 90F, even on the coldest of days.

There is nothing better than being cozy and warm in a boat during the coldest of days.

Walking on Ice

Part of living aboard in the winter is walking on a frozen pier. The planks on the pier will usually have frost on them in the evening and into the early morning. This layer of frost will make walking rather tricky! 

As with everything, there are tricks to make your passage easier! 

Walk in the middle of the pier
Walk on the nail heads of the planks
Wear shoes with lots of sipes

Walking in the middle of the pier may seem logical, but you would be surprised where you see foot prints in the snow! If you slip on ice and fall, being in the middle provides the best insurance against falling into the freezing water.

Walking on the nail heads is another trick to finding traction on a slippery surface. When you step on the plank, it will usually sink just a bit. This translates into the nail head protruding just a bit. It's not much, but the nail head will sink into the treads of your shoes and provide a tiny bit of traction on a frosty pier.

Lastly, wear shoes with lots of sipes. Sipes are the little lines on treads. The large tread blocks are rather worthless on ice, as edges are what provide the minuscule amount of traction on ice. Sipes provide many edges and add some form of traction while traversing icy terrains. 

It may seem daunting at first to walk 1000 feet over an icy pier in strong winds, but you get used to it! It also makes arrival home to a warm boat even more special. 

Dyneema in the Cold

Dyneema experiences a negative linear thermal expansion coefficient in the direction of the fiber. What this means is that it stretches as it cools. Minor differences in temperature will not create an appreciable difference in length, leading to loss of tension, but more drastic differences will.

What this means is that your rigging will go slack during the winter which is of little consequence since the sailing season ends before it gets cold enough to notice the difference. I tensioned my rigging when it was between 60F and 80F. Now that the temperature has dropped down to below 20F, we are seeing an appreciable slackness in the standing rigging. 

The headstay which is usually bar tight in the spring, summer, and fall, is now loose. I can easily pull down on the headstay's deadeye and create this much gap (nearly 6mm or 1/4") with one of my arms and little effort. I needed an incredible pulley system to achieve the necessary tightness when the rigging was installed in warmer weather. 

If I were inclined to sail on these freezing days, I would need to tension the rigging again. By waiting for the warmth to return before I set sail again, I don't need to do such adjustments. When the air warms again, rigging will once again regain its pre-established tension without being touched.

The other option I have available on these frigid days is to tighten the rigging by hand, when the warmth returns, the rigging will be tighter than I could have ever dreamed of achieving. This is nice from the standpoint of "achieving sufficient tension" but this unnecessary tension can lead to greatly increased forces exerted on the rigging which can lead to premature failures of the fittings.

Rigging tensions, as everything else on the yacht, is a double edged sword. More tension equates to more forces which leads to greater loads and stresses, which leads to premature gear failures. Always be mindful of how tight your stays are and remember that the mast fittings and chainplates have to distribute these great loads.