Heating

I cruise in the St-Laurence Gulf in Quebec, Canada which is not the warmest place on earth! I would like to know if anyone as suggestion for heating on an Ariel. I know you probably all cruise in warm weather. I was thinking about little diesel heater or Propane heater.


Andre R.
Excalibur Ariel 194

Hi Andre -

I am not in as cold of a location as you are in, but I am, however, very *allergic* to cold. :D

I use the Coleman catalytic propane heaters, and like them. Don't get the little one, it works well but you'd need at least 2 for an Ariel (or more). The bigger one puts out about 5000 BTU, almost twice what the small one is capable of, and lasts about 8 hrs per tank of fuel. There are adapters which allow you to run these stoves off of bulk tanks, too.

I also have a little propane swing stove (Force 10 or Forespar or something like that). Climbing aboard a cold boat, I use it to quickly blast out a lot of heat for an initial warm-up, and then the Coleman to maintain the temperature.

Also, I know a lot of people who will put a ceramic flowerpot on top of their stove upside down, and let the stove heat that up so it can work like a reverse heat sink. Supposedly, that works very well.

Be careful of CO and CO2 emissions from your heater, whichever you use. The Coleman catalytic heaters produce very little of these odorless and harmful (fatal) gasses, which is another reason I like them.