Re: [electricboats] question about stoves on e-boats

So in general I don't like heavier-than-air fuels on the boat regardless of the propulsion type.  That said, there are certainly effective and safe ways to have them.  If you do have them I would maintain a proper bilge blower to clear any potential vapors.   And even with a brushless EV motor there may still be other sources of potential ignition in some other motor or device on board?  Hopefully they are all proper marine grade devices with ignition protection and are all in proper order and in good safe condition.  But what if one of them isn't?  An unnecessary risk to me. 

I have a single burner Origo alcohol stove that suits my needs just fine.  But I am not a cook or a serious voyager.  I have a two burner Origo unit that I intended to install but I see no point in it now.  An induction unit is intriguing though I am very protective of my electrons for propulsion.  If I had good and reasonably high capacity solar (300 to 500 watts?) I would consider it.   I would find more use for a microwave. 

I would not use a camping type propane stove below on a boat.  I would not even store the bottles below.  Bozo no no.  I do have one of those rail mount propane grills that came with the boat and I have never used it (not a cook) and would not store the fuel canisters below deck.

As for the Pearson 10M in particular (of which I know a bit), you should not consider any part of the boat as separated from any other part as vapors are concerned.  It's just one big space to a cloud of propane or gas fumes. 

I don't know what sort of stove was in this 10M but unless it was a Vulcan commercial unit I doubt the sale helped much in the conversion.   But I would put more value in the truck fridge for me. 


Dan Pfeiffer

On 2023-10-16 2:19 pm, Scott E Erdman via groups.io wrote:

Hi Folks,

Another question – the boat that I’m looking to purchase is a Pearson 10M that has been converted to electric drive via a bank of Lithium cells for the drive and two AGM batteries for the house functions. The owner removed the stove it came with and sold it to help finance the electric conversion. In it’s place there is now the stowable countertop that would have covered the stove, the mounting spots from the gimble and a truck fridge which will come with the boat. Overall this is fine with me as I don’t really plan to need to bake a bunch and using a simple cartridge stove mounted on a holder that is gimbled will be fine for my purposes. My question is this – my understanding is that alcohol stoves are common on sailboats to reduce the potential to have build up of explosive gasses from, for example, propane. I have a two burner propane Coleman folding green camp stove that works great and sees very little use which I would love to put in this spot. An alternative would be a butane stove or even an induction stove. Is there any concern about use of such a stove igniting gasses from the Lithium batteries in the bank that resides in the quarterberth on the opposite side but which is in the same space as the galley (i.e. not separated by a bulkhead). What is the safety concern for Lithium cells ? If they are in good shape and have enough air circulation is that enough or are there other concerns that might encourage use of induction, despite the power drain it can create.

 

Thanks,

Scott