WOOD STOVE ON A BOAT ? - 28 SEPTEMBER, 2021
Well, we got stung with a week of unseasonably cooler and rainy weather, right in the middle of our winter prep session... the month of October has (for 5 years now) been the absolute best time of the year, with a sunny-warm last gasp of dry-balmy weather.
This is another area where the maritime knowledge plays in, and people show their experience/exposure level of boat knowledge (or lack of it), from many boat builders (commercial and cruiser), and from many teams of Harbor/Port managers, the knowledge base dries up, and the illogical rules.
So, let us go back in time a little (and move further North), the preponderance of wood boats before 1920 spans back 5,000 years, seamen of the North are undaunted by ice floes, 40/40's, and wet sleet ice, they must still fish, carry cargo, passengers, and navigate. If you for one minute think being in the North Sea or Bering, wet, and wind blown for days on end is accomplished only with clothing to stay warm with... think Fire !
Peat, coal, wood, oil fires and some sort of heating device has been on board ships since boats were invented... we will skip the many bizarre ways and devices review and move ahead to stand alone wood stoves and more modern 20th Century times.
Onboard tugs, fishing vessels, non-trailerable boats, freighters and cargo ships of all types open fire on boats has been common. In many cases fire was used as the source for steam propulsion before diesel power, and the inventions of using hot diesel exhaust for heat are many, but leeching enough BTU's to keep the upper and control decks warm has always required a stove.
In most cases, the galley stove was sufficient to keep the core of the boat tolerable, it runs 24/7 and supplies the coffee too ! the captains/officers quarters have almost always has a wood/coal stove, and the many versions of (pre-pellet) stoves out there today, grew out of the Rail or Marine designed stoves of old, again... I am not going to review the many brands of those boiler/stove designs here, but they are quite colorful and very unique in their years of evolution.
In the 21st Century world, pellet stove require gravity to function, so we are back to raw-simple "FIRE" (Propane, fuel/diesel oil, wood/coal) or the simple 'electric" heat sources to stay warm. Out at sea, some things change... electric requires a generator, immense solar/wind, and neither of these is a friendly ship-mate at sea in the North.
So, back to fossil fuels... (just give in to it, its a boat !), the absolute logical choice for a stove fuel would be diesel... you have it for the engines, it is a usual and common item that lies in your tanks.
The illogical choice for heat-at-sea is wood/coal/peat/charcoal... but, it is the oldest, the original, the traditional ... saying "traditional" makes it the only "I-am-an-Ancient-Mariner" choice available for old salts like us, right? so wood stove it is.
With the illogic of over 40 foot gasoline powered boats nesting in our harbors, many got concerned about sparks from wood/charcoal cooking or heating (spark arresters be damned), and being on deck in the wind with a charcoal BBQ makes the open fire ban a no-brainer, but, a below decks contained out of the wind woodstove is different... the modern recombustor designed stove has no sparks, and is of no threat to adjacently tied craft whatsoever.
burning hot with quality fuel emanates almost no smoke, and above the 45 parallel it is wood stove-on-boats city.
For the small boat owner (under 75 foot), finding wood stove manufacturers for this niche of marine-cook-heat appliance, each square foot of liveable (uninsulated) space requires about 25 BTU to heat, meaning those of us living aboard a 40-75 boat need 6,000 to 15,000 BTU capable stoves, finding Marine-tested/grade stoves in this BTU range is very hard... but there are around 30 in the International marketplace. Dickinson out of Canada is the leader in sailing boat stoves, and makes the larger boat galley stoves for over a hundred years now.
Larger ratings with boilers, bake ovens griddle tops and burners are available as well, but like with all of these marine offerings... be price-shock-prepared.
We just brought aboard a Cubic Grizzly Marine woodstove like in the picture, check back as we install, and fire it for the 1 November rain-season.