Onboard Electrical Appliances

A note: I’m writing this as we’re motoring slowly north from Annapolis to Pasadena, on Friday, September 27. We’ll be anchored off of the Maryland Yacht Club at least through the weekend while we enjoy some time with other cruisers at the SSCA GAM. The weather has been pretty yucky, generally rainy and overcast. This means we’re more mindful of power consumption and the state of our batteries than we have to be when it’s sunny. Since our mornings start with coffee, it’s led to this post.

*Grey drizzle. Not great for solar production!*

General thoughts on small electric appliances aboard:

First of all, don’t get an appliance just because everyone is talking about it. I’m reminded of a Facebook post where someone was wanting to know where to get the best deal on an InstantPot because they’d “heard it was a treasured possession on board.” HOLD UP! Rule 1 is to make sure you’ll use something before you give up precious space for it!

After rule 1 has been established, there’s the conundrum of space and power. If you don’t have the space to store it, or you don’t have the electrical capacity to power it, it can’t make the cut. Go the space but not the power? No go. Got the power but not the space? Also no go.

Welcome to boat life, where most things take way more consideration than they do on land.

Musings on power. There’s battery capacity, and then there’s inverter capacity. If you are buying regular household appliances for use on a boat, you’ll likely be dealing with an inverter. Make sure that inverter can handle the loads of the appliance you wish to have aboard. Mischief has a much smaller inverter than does Calypso; I had to hunt to find an electric kettle that would be supported. See? More consideration than you need on land!

Almost everything you can do with an electric appliance you can do without one. Want a crock pot? Sub a thermal cooker. Want a hand mixer? Sub a good mixing spoon or a whisk. InstaPot? Stove top pressure cooker. Want a blender?

Okay, that one is harder.

You get the idea.

(This is not a blog about power tools for the tool kit, rather for galley consideration. However. The same challenges of space and power apply. It’s just that often tools are more required in the tool kit than in the galley, where small appliances just tend to make life easier. The difference in ease with cutting wood with a hand saw vs a jigsaw, or trying to bore a hole in fiberglass with a hand tool as opposed to a power drill with the correct bit can be a difference of hours or even days. Do you need three electric drills? Not likely. But one will always be aboard our boats even if galley appliances can’t make the cut. No pun intended.)

*A couple of power tools ready for an underway project*

Remember that Calypso (and Mischief) are small boats. Small boats with (relatively) lots of storage, it’s true, but small boats with appropriately-sized power plants as well. Given that limitation, what galley appliances of the plug-in variety do we have aboard?

Coffee grinder
electric kettle
induction burner
hand mixer
small spice grinder
bread machine

The kettle, the bread machine, and the induction burner are really there to help save propane. We charge batteries with 400 watts of solar, and often have excess power to play with. Why not use the sun (in a roundabout way) to cook with, saving on heat and propane use? The kettle and bread machine have been in heavy rotation on both boats over the past 2 winters; the induction burner is new and I’ve yet to get used to using it.

The coffee grinder is used every morning. The hand mixer and small spice grinder? Occasional use, but when I want them, I want them. They don’t take up that much space.

And then there’s the immersion blender.

My most favorite appliance (after the coffee stuff) in a land kitchen is my trusty Cuisinart food processor. Though for a heady moment it looked like we had the power to run that on board, the space reality crashed my party. What’s a hummus-making-lover to do?

Find an immersion blender that comes with accessories. I ADORE my Braun MultiQuick!

*Stock image (of a newer model) as mine is in a locker, we’re heeled over, and I’m too lazy to dig it out*

This unit has a plug in motor section that you can attach to a number of accessories, among them a hand blender and a small food processor bowl. There’s also a whisk and potato masher, neither of which I’ve used though my friend Behan swears they both are surprisingly useful. The motor when hooked to the blender wand itself is powerful enough to blend ice (if you happen to have such things on board) or make short work of a good smoothie. It excels at creating smooth soups (we call ours the boat motor) or pureeing spinach for a good saag paneer.

The small bowl attachment is my space-starved answer to a food processor. No, I can’t make pizza dough in it, but it’s large enough to make a single-can-of-chickpeas size batch of hummus (or a single batch of pizza sauce) AND still small enough to chop garlic and ginger into tiny bits without them getting lost in the bowl. The bowl (and the blade) cleans up fast. I wish the top were a little more streamlined, but I tuck it back into a corner and it all fits pretty well.

It’s a great combination of a powerful stick blender that goes to the pot (instead of having to pour pot contents into a separate container that includes the blender bit) along with a detachable motor that also powers a food processor bowl.

it’s not my Cuisinart, but it works well enough that every time I use it I have to crow about it.

Small kitchen appliances have a space on board, even on a boat as tiny as ours!