Cruisers’ Diamonds
I read a quote on Facebook yesterday that made me chuckle…
Nautor’s Swan, the world’s leading builder of performance yachts, announced last week that it will be building a new fleet of boats purely for cruising, ranging in length from 60-115ft.
Seriously? 60-115′ boats for cruisers? Someone is a bit out of touch with reality, me thinks. Perhaps there is a market for boats like that but it’s certainly not cruisers, or at least, none that we know. The simple systems that allow a cruising boat to function trouble-free are not going to be found on a vessel that large. Simplicity has value for cruisers!
That said, I know that with our taking on the responsibility of a larger and more complex boat tricked out for charter, we’ll be giving up the freedom that came with our PDQ’s simplicity. In our opinion, a crewed charter vessel is not a cruising boat though. It is, in some ways, a bit more like a floating hotel and because of that, is expected to have with it certain luxuries. One such item that we’re currently researching is an icemaker.
While you would be hard pressed to find a built-in icemaker on any cruising sailboat (motor vessels often have them though), we feel that it will be worth the money and effort to have one installed on the Leopard. I mean, who would say no to a virtually unlimited supply of Cruisers’ Diamonds come sundowner time?
Even the diminutive Igloo portable ice maker needs 160W to make ice. That is not a tremendous of power required, but power none the less.
Power we will have.
Heck the Raritan is only 300 watts. One of the challenges with these ice makers, is they don’t make clear ice. Hopefully the clientele will not be that picky.. 😉
Clear ice? I have never even considered that. 🙂
Yep. Clear ice is preferred. that is where the Diamond part comes in..
I prefer cold solid ice in my drinks. Clarity not absolutely necessary.
The clearest ice I have seen so far is using watermaker water and a vertical ice tray from SeaFrost.
Eric
I would imagine that the source water will affect the clarity of the cubes more than the machine.
It may also have to do with the speed with which the water is frozen:
http://www.raritaneng.com/pdf_files/icemaker/L179icerettev0802.pdf
“NOTES:
1. Due to fast freezing, ice cubes may appear
“cloudy”. This is trapped air in the water and
does not affect the taste or quality of the ice.
2. “Hollow” ice cubes may result from fastfreezing under certain climatic conditions such
as high humidity, etc. and is not an indication
of a problem with the icemaker.”
Good find. Thanks, Eric. I downloaded that doc but hadn’t read it all yet.
Hi Mike,
I can see how that would be practical if you were hooked up to shore power, but will you be running the generator enough for it to work? How long does is take to make the ice? How long will it keep? I’ll be interested to see how it works out!
Eric
It’s a given that we’ll be running the gen set when guests are on board.
I think they refer to cruising. The sort of thing that the Maltese Falcon does, wafting gently around the nice cruising grounds.
Very different from what we refer to as cruisers!
I’m amused by your comment on ice-makers. I dislike ice in drinks. This is an attitude learnt in other countries where you may get clean drinking water, but tap water was used for ice. This caused upset stomachs at least, and dysentery at worst.
I hope you are enjoying your Leopard planning.
Mike
Dislike ice? Weird. 🙂
His point is valid and I’ve been told tha same in Mexico. While the Coke or bottled water may be sterile, the ice and anything out of a fountain is suspect. In such place it is wise to insist on drinking from the bottle. Beer is, of course, a good choise; always sterile.
I have had beer for breakfast for that very reason.
I have to admit it…we love having ice. We do have an ice maker but rarely run it at anchor. It will generate enough for cocktails during one generator cycle but we’ll often keep a week’s worth of ice in the freezer. If we’re in a marina once a week, the system takes care of itself.
That’s why we love our friends on trawlers!
60 to 115 feet? Hey, if I had ten or twenty million bucks sitting around, I might call that a cruiser.
But if that were the case, I’d rather have a Dashew Beowulf-78 class.
And also, if that were the case, I’d be too tied up with Wall Street / Silicon Valley / Mafia work to have time for cruising….
We’ve often thought an ice maker would be nice … will be interested in hearing what you decide.
This is what we wrote on 12 volt ice makers. They are easy to install and portable but ….
http://www.twofishcat.com/2012/09/28/the-icemaker/
On SV Joana, we have a WAECO freezer, separate from the fridge. This is a stand-alone freezer, front opening, about the size of a “bar fridge”. I have 6 ice cube trays (with lids!) inside and refill the trays every second day. It takes more than a day to freeze them down because I don’t operate the freezer “that” cold in order to keep current consumption down. It draws about 5A (12V) with a duty cycle of about 50%. I don’t think you can keep enough ice cube trays in a small freezer like this to satisfy paying charter guests. I do think that you need to have an ice maker on board. However, you may get by with a compact ice maker that runs on 120V, and then you make ice for a couple of hours every day while the generator is running. You did say the generator would be running when you had guests aboard, right? Surely you don’t mean 24/7? There will be a lot of maintenance …….
No, not 24/7 but we know it’ll have to be run, especially if the guests want AC. During that time we’ll run the ice maker.
We actually have one of those counter top units here on ZTC. It was given to us by Happy Times as they stopped using it. We haven’t used it in quite a while either. It seems to take a long while to make a significant amount of ice.
We use a Supentown IM 101 icemaker. Uses 2.2 amps 120 VAC. Costs ~$200. Makes 12 cylindrical ice cubes every 15 min. Built in timer and cleaning cycles. Of course, one must have inverter to use. So 22 Ah to make 48 cubes. More than enough for some Margaritas, Mojitos or “fill in the blank” cocktails. We use ours to chill wine as well.
Almost exactly like the one we have here on ZTC.
I guess a definition of ” a long while” is in order. “We” think 60 minutes is acceptable for 48 cylinders of ice.
I never really kept count with ours.
We are actually at the beginning of our cruising plan. We have 5 kids who will join, so we may be the only cruising family out there on a 60+ boat. Havn’t purchased yet, so we’ll see….
Big boat. Let me know if you end up with a new Swan. 🙂