Mark has asked me to come up with a plan for our galley. While we both cook (well, I do things in the kitchen/galley that could be called cooking if you are being kind) since the galley is exposed it sort of falls into the aesthetic realm which is my area so I get to design it. Mark told me I should have a wish list and while some items on my list won't happen due to space constraints, I decided to dream big.
The following photo is not mine, nor is it a photo of Ceol Mor but if Mark could manage to build the same galley for me I should say I would be well pleased. Yes. I think this would do nicely.
Never mind that this isn't even a galley on a monohull, it is the galley of Blue Guru, a luxury 70 foot catamaran available for charter from Charterworld for the bargain price of $29,000 per week. Still, I think this galley set up would work nicely for me. I still wouldn't be able to whip up gourmet meals unless you count grilled cheese as an epicurean masterpiece but I would look really good making messes in this. I might even be inspired to wear a cute and tidy apron. You told me to dream big Mark...
And now, back to reality. Here is a shot looking into the galley from the saloon. Yes, it looks like a bomb went off. A boat in refit often looks like what it is- a construction site. You'll notice that there isn't even room enough for the stove from Blue Guru in our galley. So I shall have to keep the beautiful galley of Blue Guru in my head and work with what I've got.
Now back to reality, its time to dream up a teeny, tiny dream galley. I would like Corian countertops. I've lived with them in the house and I really like them. They are easy to keep clean, are heat resistant and light in weight- very light in weight which is good not only for sailing but because a boat galley means you will have to lift up panels in the countertop to access storage. A lighter panel to lift while rocking and rolling in the sea is a good thing and since I guarantee that at some point I will drop said panel on my foot, my poor toes will appreciate the lighter weight. Ideally I'd have Corian fiddles with handholds cut in but if sticking with teak fiddles means we are done sooner and with a few more pennies in our pocket by all means- keep the teak.
We currently have a double bowl shallow sink. I want to scrap that for a deeper single basin. If I need to have a double basin for one bowl of salt water and one for fresh water for washing up, I can always drop in a plastic basin. Having the deeper single bowl means I will have a handy spot to clean the grime off of Kitty. She's a wee thing so I imagine it will serve her well as a bathtub for a few more years. I want to keep the fresh water and salt water foot pumps, but I want to ditch the horrible, impossible to fill a pot under faucet we currently have for a goose neck faucet with an attached spray hose. This means we have to have a pressurized water system which is at the top of my list of wants.
Ceol Mor has a gimballed 2 burner propane stove and oven. Due to the fact that there is no real room for a proper propane locker on our boat ( we have a tank on the stern rail) I want to get rid of the huge and heavy and very expensive to bring to ABYC safety standards stove in favor of a simple, inexpensive, lightweight and easy to install Origo 3000. It will be easier to build a locker to store alcohol. It will be easier to transport cans of fuel via the dinghy as opposed to schlepping a big and heavy propane tank. I've done dry runs cooking in my Dutch oven on a stove top and feel very sure that we can forgo the Origo 6000 which has an oven. I'd rather use the space where the oven would fit for storage. Especially because for some reason Mark is very attached to bringing a bread machine on board. Well you'll need a spot to store that huge machine and this is the only spot that it will fit in.
We currently have an old microwave installed and with my fantastic cooking abilities *cough cough* the microwave and the inverter that allows it to function get a workout on the boat. We've found a compact microwave/convection oven combo and I am hoping that the footprint will work on Ceol Mor. That will take care of any oven needs that can not be met with either the Dutch oven or a solar oven. I do not expect to use the oven all that much but it would be nice to have from time to time.
We have an antiquated holding plate in a reefer box just now. It pretty much sucks. I WISH we had the room and amp hours for THIS sweet set up but we don't have either. Womp. Womp. My goal here is to have me climbing up on the counters, throwing my upper body down into a small, dark hole and trying to extricate food stuffs as little as possible. My first choice would be a 2 drawer refrigerator/freezer. my second choice would be a small refrigerator drawer for day to say stuff and a well insulated ice box with holding plate for long term storage. What I will probably end up with is an Engel portable model. So long as we figure out a way to store it out of the way, I'll deal with it and just pretend that it is a gorgeous drawer model.
The one thing I dreamed up that I really want and that Mark is applying his Mr. Wizard skills too is a lifting storage system. We have a reefer box wedged between the sink and bulkhead for food storage. it is difficult to access, deep and again requires far too much acrobatic talent for me to ever be happy about. What I want is to build in a removable, locking lid into the countertop which when removed will allow access to a shelving system that raises up and locks into position. When you are done getting your needed items out, you can lower it, replace the lid and never once have to engage in contortionism. I initally though about gas lifts but Mark insists this would not support the weight of canned goods. He has a better idea. Since we are still in the design and engineering process of this project and are probably about 6 months from installation you'll just have to stay tuned to see how this one pans out. I do know that if we are successful, short sailors everywhere will sing our praises.
So that is how I see the galley of Ceol Mor in my minds eye. It will be a heck of a lot of work but if we've had to delay departure to get the boat finished, it would be silly to skimp on the design of the galley, something we will use constantly to save a few weeks work. Make it so Mark, make it so.
The following photo is not mine, nor is it a photo of Ceol Mor but if Mark could manage to build the same galley for me I should say I would be well pleased. Yes. I think this would do nicely.
And now, back to reality. Here is a shot looking into the galley from the saloon. Yes, it looks like a bomb went off. A boat in refit often looks like what it is- a construction site. You'll notice that there isn't even room enough for the stove from Blue Guru in our galley. So I shall have to keep the beautiful galley of Blue Guru in my head and work with what I've got.
Now back to reality, its time to dream up a teeny, tiny dream galley. I would like Corian countertops. I've lived with them in the house and I really like them. They are easy to keep clean, are heat resistant and light in weight- very light in weight which is good not only for sailing but because a boat galley means you will have to lift up panels in the countertop to access storage. A lighter panel to lift while rocking and rolling in the sea is a good thing and since I guarantee that at some point I will drop said panel on my foot, my poor toes will appreciate the lighter weight. Ideally I'd have Corian fiddles with handholds cut in but if sticking with teak fiddles means we are done sooner and with a few more pennies in our pocket by all means- keep the teak.
We currently have a double bowl shallow sink. I want to scrap that for a deeper single basin. If I need to have a double basin for one bowl of salt water and one for fresh water for washing up, I can always drop in a plastic basin. Having the deeper single bowl means I will have a handy spot to clean the grime off of Kitty. She's a wee thing so I imagine it will serve her well as a bathtub for a few more years. I want to keep the fresh water and salt water foot pumps, but I want to ditch the horrible, impossible to fill a pot under faucet we currently have for a goose neck faucet with an attached spray hose. This means we have to have a pressurized water system which is at the top of my list of wants.
Ceol Mor has a gimballed 2 burner propane stove and oven. Due to the fact that there is no real room for a proper propane locker on our boat ( we have a tank on the stern rail) I want to get rid of the huge and heavy and very expensive to bring to ABYC safety standards stove in favor of a simple, inexpensive, lightweight and easy to install Origo 3000. It will be easier to build a locker to store alcohol. It will be easier to transport cans of fuel via the dinghy as opposed to schlepping a big and heavy propane tank. I've done dry runs cooking in my Dutch oven on a stove top and feel very sure that we can forgo the Origo 6000 which has an oven. I'd rather use the space where the oven would fit for storage. Especially because for some reason Mark is very attached to bringing a bread machine on board. Well you'll need a spot to store that huge machine and this is the only spot that it will fit in.
We currently have an old microwave installed and with my fantastic cooking abilities *cough cough* the microwave and the inverter that allows it to function get a workout on the boat. We've found a compact microwave/convection oven combo and I am hoping that the footprint will work on Ceol Mor. That will take care of any oven needs that can not be met with either the Dutch oven or a solar oven. I do not expect to use the oven all that much but it would be nice to have from time to time.
We have an antiquated holding plate in a reefer box just now. It pretty much sucks. I WISH we had the room and amp hours for THIS sweet set up but we don't have either. Womp. Womp. My goal here is to have me climbing up on the counters, throwing my upper body down into a small, dark hole and trying to extricate food stuffs as little as possible. My first choice would be a 2 drawer refrigerator/freezer. my second choice would be a small refrigerator drawer for day to say stuff and a well insulated ice box with holding plate for long term storage. What I will probably end up with is an Engel portable model. So long as we figure out a way to store it out of the way, I'll deal with it and just pretend that it is a gorgeous drawer model.
The one thing I dreamed up that I really want and that Mark is applying his Mr. Wizard skills too is a lifting storage system. We have a reefer box wedged between the sink and bulkhead for food storage. it is difficult to access, deep and again requires far too much acrobatic talent for me to ever be happy about. What I want is to build in a removable, locking lid into the countertop which when removed will allow access to a shelving system that raises up and locks into position. When you are done getting your needed items out, you can lower it, replace the lid and never once have to engage in contortionism. I initally though about gas lifts but Mark insists this would not support the weight of canned goods. He has a better idea. Since we are still in the design and engineering process of this project and are probably about 6 months from installation you'll just have to stay tuned to see how this one pans out. I do know that if we are successful, short sailors everywhere will sing our praises.
So that is how I see the galley of Ceol Mor in my minds eye. It will be a heck of a lot of work but if we've had to delay departure to get the boat finished, it would be silly to skimp on the design of the galley, something we will use constantly to save a few weeks work. Make it so Mark, make it so.
So we have an older reefer box on Sundowner as well. We've been plotting and scheming about how to fit one of the Engel box fridges into the galley of our boat and really it was looking like destruction of the old reefer box.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know... Its really funny you made this post today. Just last night I went back to the Engel site and saw they are about to release a new model with a remote compressor and a cold plate to retro fit reefer boxes with the newer cooling of the Engels!
I was overjoyed when I saw this. Apparently it can bring a 100qt reefer down to 40F if it is well insulated. Just a thought. =)
Very exciting news on the new Engel model but it still loses the appeal of the portable Engel units. There is a lot to be said for having a portable unit because once it dies (and it WILL die) we can just easily pull it out to either repair it or chuck the darn thing. Reading Pat and Ali's refrigeration repair nightmare on www.Bumfuzzle.com has scarred me. Installing a drop in unit will still require Herculean efforts when it all goes pear shaped. I will look into it though as it would be easier to do a drop in rather than reconfigure the galley to accommodate a portable unit.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but the remote compressor model has quick connects so in theory if it died all you'd have to do would be to disconnect it, unbolt, and replace. Seems pretty easy.
ReplyDeleteI sympathize with the bums. You should have seen the monster that I dug out of our boat that was "the old fridge". It was literally around 30ft of copper tube. 30ft of water hose. Two water strainers. A compressor unit. 13ft of 2/0 cable. 2 fuse blocks. A water pump. Several switches to control the monster. And some other miscellaneous stuff. I was amazed. Amazed.
Can't wait to see what Mark comes up with for the "lift" system. Sounds like a great idea.
ReplyDeleteMy galley isn't big enough for such a refit but I am interested to see how others do theirs for the time to upgrade to a larger boat. :-)
ReplyDeleteDan, you can refit ANY galley, it just takes imagination and motivation from being really pissed off at the current set up. :)
ReplyDeleteY'know, we could have both saved some money if we'd been moored alongside each other during our refits. Lulu and I removed our Origo 3000 (gimballed, no less) and replaced it with a used CNG-converted-to-propane 2-burner stove with oven. Of course, that required completely removing the entire galley and rebuilding it.
ReplyDeleteDan, as Cidnie says, even the smallest galley can get some sort of refit. To check ours out see the early 2009 entries in out blog at www.yodersafloat.wordpress.com
-Steve
DOH! I could save even more money and drastically improve the quality of our meals if I just anchored along side and let you do the cooking. :)
DeleteI should not have read this post because now I am going to be dreaming of those refrigerator drawers. I know exactly what you mean about contorting oneself, not to mention bruising the front of the body, when trying to lean way down to the depths of a weirdly shaped refrigerator. I've been grateful just to HAVE a fridge on Moonrise. But on whatever the next boat is, I want something easier to use, and something I don't have to empty out just to find the mustard. Your boat looks awesome. Now I need to go look at those, too. Wow. dreaming sure takes up a lot of my time lately.
ReplyDeleteHow did your Origo 3000 stove work out for you? I've been looking all over online for a review on the stove, and haven't found a thorough one yet. Lots of forum posts with snippets here and there, but thats mostly it. Do you mind sharing the details of how the stove has worked out for you, how easy its been to find alcohol for it, would you recommend it?
ReplyDeleteHi Stacey! We have not yet arrived at a decision on the stove/oven as we had so many surprise issues to address first. I will tell you that I have continued talking to folks and asking questions and the people who have the Origos seem very happy with it. Fuel availability in the Caribbean seems to be fairly straight forward in well populated areas (hardware stores) but in more remote locations it can be an issue. To be fair, those same remote areas seem to have issues with propane availability as well. I will update once we figure it all out and start working on the galley, which should be in a few months if the deck hardware installation goes as it has been thus far- slowly but surely!
Delete