In serious hot water

Devising a multiple-input system for producing hot water

- Rebecca Childress

Tierra del Fuego, Land of Fire, might have a warm name, but the images of glaciers and penguins give me the chills. We are sailing our way toward the southern tip of South America, and while my husband, Patrick Childress, sees this as a great adventure, I am more practical and first require heat and hot water on our Valiant 40, Brick House.

To warm the air, we have installed a radiator “car heater,” which transfers heat from the diesel engine cooling system and blows warm air in the main saloon when the engine is running. A wood-burning stove from Cubic Mini Wood Stoves (cubicminiwoodstoves. com) was also installed in the main saloon for heat at anchor.

Coldwater showers in the equatorial tropics are quite a different sensation than those near Antarctica. Our original water heater got very hot when the diesel engine ran for a long time, or when plugged into 120volt AC shore power. But going forward, it will be very rare to have any shore power, and it is unreasonable to run the engine just to heat up water. Nearly any original component still on our 44-year-old sailboat has long outlived its expiration date; with every passing day, we felt our original water heater was one day closer to a bursting disaster.