Cooktop choices

[Bob McGovern]

Not sure if this belongs under Cruising or Accomodation. But it is maybe more about how people live on their Ballad at anchor and under way, so I will post the question here. We are replacing the 2-burner pressure alcohol cooktop with an Origo or Cookmate non-pressure cooker. We do not need an oven, as we will use the Magma grill, a Dutch oven, or a solar oven for baking. The question is: do you ever use two burners? Underway, people tend to cook simple (one-pot) meals if they cook at all. At anchorage, we can cook in the cockpit using the grill or a portable Coleman propane stove. Less smell, condensation, and heat. We are trying to imagine when we would have both Origo burners going at once.

(Here it should be mentioned that the Ballad will be based in Mexico and the tropics. Very hot, very dry, easy to live al fresco. That has bearing both on the desirability of cooking indoors and the need to add 4.5" of foam to the icebox.)

Should we buy the gimbaled single burner stove, or choose the two-burner?

[MarkRyan1981]

Hello Bob,

My wife is a keen cook, we have an old two burner calor gaz job that has a grill as well and that has served us very well (it is slightly beaten up and rusty now mind you, so I would like to replace it myself at some stage). When at anchor there is nothing better than the smell of chilli con carne going on one hob with rice on the other! So I would heartily recommend two hobs, but then I sail our Ballad on the East coast of England where we are not blessed with your fine weather. Al Fresco here means likely exposure a lot of the time .

Let me know what you decide on,

Best regards,

Mark (Triola, Ballad #51)

[Bob McGovern]

Thanks, Mark! Our Ballad will live for several years in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, which is about as dessicated as it gets. IIRC, central Baja sees 6" of rain a year -- less than Essex probably sees each week.



One of our biggest (and most fun) challenges in refitting Fionn is converting a boat made for Northern Europe to one suited to the 40*C of the desert & tropics. Priority changes from keeping cold water out to letting air in. And no one in their right mind cooks belowdecks in Mexico.

Our Ballad did come with the metal fire-pan from an Origo double stove. It was just lurking under the drop-in pressure alcohol stove. We would like to have metal below and behind the stove, for safety. Maybe that's a sign we should buy the double burner model? If we mount it low, we could build a hinged countertop over it.

[prjacobs]

Hi Bob,
I have a 2-burner gimbaled Origo in the Vega, and often we have both burners going. I use the gimbals when cooking while under way. I was going to put the exact same unit in the Ballad, but stumbled across an Origo 6000, new in the box, for a good price at a local swap meet, so .....
(It's also on gimbles). I love the non-presurized alcohol stoves, and don't mind waiting a bit longer to have a full kettle boil. Having a less intense heat than propane I find I don't burn things as much

[Bob McGovern]

WANT! But can't have. Where we're going, an indoor oven might never get used, tho. Probably a welcome source of heat up North. We're looking at solar ovens, like the Sport.

http://www.solarovens.org/

We need one that packs reasonably small and is hard to break. Looks like we will choose the two burner Cookmate. A test fit of the new icebox shows we have just enuf room left of it for the metal crumb tray. We realized we would need to carry a spare cannister for the 1-burner stove, & we figure we may as well store it in an adjacent burner. Partner has visions of cooking 4-course meals for a dozen friends. Who am I to puncture dreams?

Question about your thru-hulls, Peter: are those twin 1.5" seacocks, & you just stepped down the sea water inlet one (forward) to ~3/4"? We want to move ours back there, too. Only three seacocks when we are done, & we'd like 2 of them in the same place. We are thinking about teeing a washdown pump off the sink intake, then teeing that line so we have a washdown hose outlet on the foredeck & a shower at the transom. All sea water, but oh well.

Might try to run the icebox drain into the sink outlet; have to figure out the waterline first!

[prjacobs]

Bob,
Not sure what you mean on the seacocks, but here's a rundown:
Forward in the head there's a 3/4" thru hull and a 1 1/4" thru hull. (I use a 1 1/4" pipe to 1 1/2" hose elbow on the head outlet, Groco FFC-1250
Aft, at the galley, is a 1" thru hull for the sink drain together with a 3/4" thru hull for the engine intake. I have no salt water inlet for the galley.

Using the FF-1250 allows a smaller (1 1/4") thru hull while still using a 1 1/2" hose. There is no restriction to flow, as when you stick a 1 1/2" hose over a pipe fitting you're down to 1 1/4" anyway, and that diameter simply carries on through the 1 1/4" seacock.
Hope this helps.
Peter.

[Bob McGovern]

Yeah -- where your engine intake inlet is, we have a larger (either 1" or 1.5") sink drain thru-hull. Our galley seawater intake is presently under the stove; that has to move. Our raw water cooling inlet is down on the keel, in the aftmost bilge compartment. Both head thru-hulls are going away. And we have a depth transducer under the galley sink, too, jammed hard up against the engine box. No readout for it, tho. That will be removed & we'll maybe buy one of those wireless depth/speed/temp units.

So four total hull penetrations, down from seven. I hope to buy some MDO plywood tomorrow & see if that's a viable substitute for marine ply. We're going for a Herreschoff interior.