Extreme coolboxes
Discussion
Not sure if this is the right forum but as it's for a boat I'll persevere.
My boat has no fridge; I use a normal coolbox which is OK for 24 hours but not much more. As it has a petrol engine (the boat not the coolbox) I can only have an electric fridge which would expensive and marginal on power.
Then I stumbled upon 'extreme' coolboxes such as the Coleman Xtreme 36 http://www.coleman.com/coleman/colemancom/detail.a... and Yeti http://www.coolboxesuk.co.uk/shop-online/all.html
These claim to keep ice frozen in warm ambient temps for 5-10 days; I just wondered if anyone else uses them or has any thoughts?
My boat has no fridge; I use a normal coolbox which is OK for 24 hours but not much more. As it has a petrol engine (the boat not the coolbox) I can only have an electric fridge which would expensive and marginal on power.
Then I stumbled upon 'extreme' coolboxes such as the Coleman Xtreme 36 http://www.coleman.com/coleman/colemancom/detail.a... and Yeti http://www.coolboxesuk.co.uk/shop-online/all.html
These claim to keep ice frozen in warm ambient temps for 5-10 days; I just wondered if anyone else uses them or has any thoughts?
have an Engel fridge in my expedition truck.
will cost you a few hundred quid.
happily kept ice cream at -20 in hte middle of the sahara with day time temps peaking at 55degrees and has survived thousands of miles of constant vibration and clouds of dust
in "normal" conditions the thing pulls barely 0.5amp/hr to keep cold (so long as you don't open the thing all the time).
all you need to know:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/equipment/equipmen...
will cost you a few hundred quid.
happily kept ice cream at -20 in hte middle of the sahara with day time temps peaking at 55degrees and has survived thousands of miles of constant vibration and clouds of dust
in "normal" conditions the thing pulls barely 0.5amp/hr to keep cold (so long as you don't open the thing all the time).
all you need to know:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/equipment/equipmen...
m0ssy said:
no thanks, i will buy a boat with a gas fridge, gas heated water, seperate climate controlled heater for cabin and deck areas, sleeping for 8 but six comfortably and of course twin turbo diesels 
I also have a twin-turbo diesel but it's in the car, whilst my boat has a petrol car engine. Weird eh?! The Engel fridge sees rather overkill for my needs but thanks for the suggestion.
Oops wrong thread. This one seems to be for poor people and water gypsies. 
Edited by Motorvator whilst laying in the sun on his leather sunpad over his extremely strong foredeck drinking a G&T sourced from one of his three drinks cabinets utilising manufactured ice from his icemaker powered by his 8KVA genny and supplied by a seperate water tank full of Acqua Di Cristallo - Tributo a Modigliani, finally garnished with slices of lemon and lime kept fresh in his 24/240V fridge and nibbling on some of those really moreish but expensive spanish olives that he keeps on board for just such an occasion
badgerade said:
Is there room for a small 3ish kg propane/ butane canister? You can get fridges that run on gas/12v/240v... Plug it into the mains before you leave to cool it down, 12v in the car then gas. We use one for long camping trips.
There is, in fact there's already a Calor Gas cyclinder at the stern for the cooker, but it would catastrophically fail the BSS safety regs - anything that mixes gas and petrol in the same space is viewed very dimly; the burner (eg a Propex heater) has to be sealed/vented to the outside. You can get fridges with seperate condensers that could perhaps be sealed in such a way but really it's not worth the aggro. I've spent a year chewing over options from Engel/Waeco downwards and in reality a simple carry on/carry off coolbox is the simplest answer. But a normal one is not adequate.
(At least I'm nowhere near Motovator's 8Kw generator; I expect he plays frightful pop music as well...)
Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 2nd August 18:10
Those Coleman & Yeti boxes work great, judge how often you use the boat for how long and what you want to keep cool, if its just milk, bacon, butter that sort of stuff, a cool box with ice packs will work for a long weekend no probs. If you are making week long passages in the Med or Carib then go the Waco route.
I see tons of people with massively over specced boats that just give them big yard bills, and headaches.
Keep it simple and it will always work, I just had a yacht (big one) desperate for an engineer, as they were picking up a charter in a couple of days and had to bin €8k's woth of frozen stores as the compressors packed up.
I see tons of people with massively over specced boats that just give them big yard bills, and headaches.
Keep it simple and it will always work, I just had a yacht (big one) desperate for an engineer, as they were picking up a charter in a couple of days and had to bin €8k's woth of frozen stores as the compressors packed up.
Simpo Two said:
(At least I'm nowhere near Motovator's 8Kw generator; I expect he plays frightful pop music as well...)
Indeed I have a sound system on board that puts out more power than your little petrol engine with it's state of the art dynamo system and I spend many an evening just listening to my IPod collection at volume.
If you like I could get you a berth next to me. In fact there seem to be quite a few berths available both sides.
Yachtworker said:
Those Coleman & Yeti boxes work great, judge how often you use the boat for how long and what you want to keep cool, if its just milk, bacon, butter that sort of stuff, a cool box with ice packs will work for a long weekend no probs... Keep it simple and it will always work
That's good to hear. I like simple (shut up Motorvator) and it's quite fun that the entire electrical content of my boat are two batteries, a starter motor and four light bulbs MOTORVATOR said:
If you like I could get you a berth next to me. In fact there seem to be quite a few berths available both sides.
For £550pa including craning and winter storage you could have a deal, but I think the water in your area is grey and lumpy. And deep, with lots of drowned people and broken boats underneath.But maybe you could rent HMS Simpo as a tender and simply crane it onto one of your many decks...?
Back to coolboxes. Having fully weighed up the options for Yetis etc, the ones with about the right volume are remarkably low, too low in fact to take a bottle of tonic water. Without tonic water there is no gin & tonic and without that, well, you may as well go home. And then suddenly all my brain cells moved in the same direction at once, a scary thing indeed. I realised that my '24-hr' coolbox, whilst double skinned, has no insulation! Hence I plan to drill some strategic holes and blast it with expanding foam (just like a certain roof)
There is a possibility I suppose that the foam will dissolve the plastic but it's worth a punt!
m0ssy said:
no thanks, i will buy a boat with a gas fridge, gas heated water, seperate climate controlled heater for cabin and deck areas, sleeping for 8 but six comfortably and of course twin turbo diesels
The roof is nearly fixed lol
You won't be going far then? The roof is nearly fixed
lol
Crossed the Atlantic 3 years ago, and ran the engine for 8 hours total (a night with no wind on route to Cape Verde's) apart from motoring into the anchorage in Bequia.
As for climate control, ever heard of a wind scoop in the forward hatch? Oh, silly me! You won't be on the hook will you. You'll be getting robbed in a marina.
But I'm one of those water Gypsies.
I sell the Coleman and the Igloo boxes. Both are excellent. I have an Igloo toolbox and it kept the ice blocks frozen for the whole of the British Grand Prix when left inside a tent, and it was hot that weekend. Ridiculously hot inside a tent! I really rate them. The Coleman Extreme boxes are supposed to be even better.
danyeates said:
I sell the Coleman and the Igloo boxes.
Have you got anything in the 30 litre area that can take a 31cm tall bottle? The Coleman 36 is only 20cm inside!danyeates said:
it kept the ice blocks frozen for the whole of the British Grand Prix
We presume the whole weekend and not just two hours!I happen to have a Waeco CF50 in the back garden that I could loan you Simpo. Works as a freezer and takes full size bottles upright. More importantly in times gone past I have proved that it is possible to pack 109 bottles of Stella (284ml) in one.
I use it on the Revenger when I get it out (rarely nowadays) and it will freeze the drink off the batteries if you really wind it up but will run for a good few days at fridge temperature off a single 110ah battery in reasonable ambient temperatures as long as what you put in is down to temp already.
Something like that with a cheap solar charger would see you good for just about anything you wanted to do.
Being 50 litres there would be quite a bit of room for say steaks alongside the gin if you were to be out poaching one night.
I use it on the Revenger when I get it out (rarely nowadays) and it will freeze the drink off the batteries if you really wind it up but will run for a good few days at fridge temperature off a single 110ah battery in reasonable ambient temperatures as long as what you put in is down to temp already.
Something like that with a cheap solar charger would see you good for just about anything you wanted to do.
Being 50 litres there would be quite a bit of room for say steaks alongside the gin if you were to be out poaching one night.
Pah! How's this for an 'extreme' coolbox? (see link below)
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/
(Probably not recomended for GRP boats!)
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/
(Probably not recomended for GRP boats!)
Simpo Two said:
Igloo Marine 25qt (23Ltr) Coldbox looks promising but I can't find internal dimensions - can you? But I don't think it is 'extreme'.
The Igloo 25qt internal dimensions are...Edited by Simpo Two on Wednesday 3rd August 09:40
285mm high
425mm wide (top) 380mm wide (bottom)
235mm deep (top) 195mm deep (bottom).
The only one I have which is 31cm high internally, is the 72qt.
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