Gas Cylinder Woes and other things

 Well I can't say as it comes as a great surprise, the writing has been on the wall for getting on for two years if not longer. Now it's official, Calor are discontinuing the 4.5kg Butane and 3.9Kg Propane gas cylinders.

That's a bloody nuisance because our gas locker, like most on older (and many newer) yachts is not large enough to carry the next size up. So Calors magnaimous offer of a free exchange to a larger cylinder is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

The 6Kg cylinder has a diameter of 256mm compared to the 240mm of the 3.9kg cylinder so it's just possible that our gas locker is wide and long enough to accomodate the larger cylinders in the horizontal plane but ...

The bigger cylinder is 495mm high compared to the 340mm height of the smaller cylinder. That's just over 6 inches in old money and that ain't gonna fit by a good 3 inches at least.

So what are the options?

Well right away we can rule out one of the options being bandied about on Social Meeja - refilling the smaller cylinders from larger ones. Apart from being illegal, it's bloody dangerous. And that is the end of that. Period.

So, the first option is to simply switch to Campinggaz. However, there are serious drawbacks. Not the least of them by far is that Campinggaz is horribly expensive. It's exactly the same Butane gas as in Calor Butane cylinders but about 50% more expensive. Furthermore, the cylinders are much smaller therefore they won't last anything like as long. However, on the up side they are (currently at least) widely available both in the UK and on the continent (unlike Calor).

A switch to Campingaz may be the only short term viable solution when our current supply of Propane runs out.

Another option being widely suggested is one of the several refillable cylinder options such as Safefill. However, their smallest (5kg) cylinder has a diameter of 310mm. It ain't gonna fit! Add to that, it can only be refilled on some, not all, petrol station forecourts that have an Autogas pump (and some other locations). And Autogas is in a slow but terminal decline. That's not a total show stopper as two full cylinders would last us all season (just about) but then we're talking about over £200 per cylinder! So they won't fit and with adaptors etc. it's an outlay of getting on for £450 for something that will be inconvenient to refill when we're out and about and may have a limited lifespan.

There are other refillable cylinders (Gaslow etc) but similar problems apply. Not liking that plan.

So what next? A bigger gas locker???

It will be a bloody nuisance but it is going to need looking at for several reasons.

The primary reason is the very reason why we use 3.9kg Propane rather than 4.5kg Butane. Butane cylinders stop gassing (generating gas from the liquid in the cylinder) at lower temperatures, Once the temperature gets into single figures, they become less effective and below freezing they pretty much don't work at all. Now as things stand, we don't know how much time we'll be spendind on board in the winter (virtually none for the next yesr or two, that we do know) but our long term plan has always been to live on Pagan year round and, depending on circumstances beyond our control, that may still happen. So Butane is not a good option.

So the question is going to be whether we can change out the current gas locker for one large enough to accomodate two 6kg cylinders and still make it gas tight and draining overboard well above the waterline. I thing we probably can, albeit it is a pain in the bottom to have to do it.

On the up side, two 6kg cyilnders would comfortable last us six months at least ... and that's on current usage (see below).

So there we are with the gas. It's either costly Campinggaz and maybe six to eight weeks of gas capacity or a new gas locker and bigger Calor bottles. Either way it's a PITA!

And that brings me back to plans I may have mentioned previously to wit reducing our gas usage (which is only used for cooking) by partially switching to electric cooking methods.

To recap, we've been considering increasing the battery capacity by adding a battery bank under the Port side saloon settee, contriving ways and means to fit as much solar charging capacity as we can to maintain that battery bank, and then using that bank to power, via an inverter, a microwave, a Ninja Foodi multi-function cooker and, probably, an electric hot plate (they're not expensive). We certainly can't create a system with enough juice to run two or more such devices at once but we don't really need to. Any one of the three at a time will suffice. 

To that end, we recently bought the 6l Smartlid version for use at home and we love it! However, it may be a bit big for use on the boat so the 4.7l Mini may be the better option although it doesn't have the same range of functions and it's capacity, whilst adequate for meals for two, would be restrictive when we have guests or crew aboard. 

We had already all but decided to turn the navigation table area into an extension of the galley and now my mind is all but made up on that. We hardly ever use it as a navigation area (we normally navigate electronically) and it's a bit cramped to sit at for long periods so I can't really use it as an "office". If space to lay out a chart is needed, we can use one side of the saloon table just as easily.

So I think that whole project is going to have to move up the agenda. That said, I am still determined that the next headline item expenditure has got to be the new sails. We ain't a sailing boat at the moment! We're a motor boat with big dishrags!!

So to finish (for now) this item off, the question is whether, if we go down the route of cooking electrically as much as possible (and I'm hopeful we'd be able to do so at least ever other day), do we then really need to worry about the gas bottle size and type or would Campingaz suffice? Perhaps the only way to answer that is to try it and see (with the caveat that swapping the 3.9kg propane bottles for 6kg propane bottles may be a short lived option).

Well, sufficient unto the day thereof. All of the above will have to wait until Spring at least. And on that front, the planned late Autumn working trips didn't happen because the weather was utterly shite. We decided there really wasn't any value in my spending two weeks on board, with all the expenses that entailed (my travel, Jane's costs getting to and from work etc.) when realistically I wasn't going to be able to make much, if any, progress on the jobs that need doing.

The down side of that decision is that the pressure is now on come the Spring.

At the very top of the list is addressing the ongoing leaks on deck. The latest leak is caused by the forward hatch Perspex no longer sealing at the corners. I can see only two options, it's either a new hatch or try and inject a sealant or glue (probably epoxy) into the gap that's formed due to the Perpex becoming slightly distorted. I'll be trying the latter option first but I'm not wildly optimistic.

And once I've killed all the leaks (if I ever do, it seems to be a never ending vicious circle) I really want to get the blasted forecabin refit finished. It's been dragging on for far too long and I'm really not good at picking up the thread of interupted jobs again. Hey ho.

In days of old, by now I'd be seriously into planning our summer adventures to far flung places (well, the Solent, the Channel Islands etc.). I can't realistically see when we're going to get back to that. In fact, I'm wondering just how much actual cruising we'll get to do this year at all as there's so much to do on the boat and our opportunities to crack on with the work are so limited at present.

Ah well, onwards and upwards.