A potentially important piece of equipment you might consider for your boat is a heater. Of course, there are some climates where this is an obvious decision. For example, if you live in Florida the answer might be succinctly put, “Hell no.” If you’re feeling cranky, you might add the phrase, “Are you out of your mind?” Contrariwise, if you cruise Alaska or Norway, a heater is absolutely critical to your survival.
      In the Pacific Northwest where we currently cruise, it’s not an easy choice. Part of the year is Alaska summer cold and the rest is just San Francisco on a bad hair day. You might be able to grit your teeth, layer up, and survive without. And then again, maybe not. After two winters on a Puget Sound floating home, I recommend a heater.
      For both safety and power consumption reasons, you should not get an electric space heater. This sounds like a great idea until the first time (and last) your boat burns to the water line. The statistics on how bad an idea it is to mix electric heaters and boats is compelling. The pictures are absolutely horrifying. We know several boats who successfully heat their craft with a little wood stove. The very thought, however, of mixing my children with burning wood horrifies me. The marshmallows would inevitably come out and that would be the end of the upholstery.
      The decision for s/v Don Quixote was taken out of our hands by her former owner. He cruised part time in Alaska and right before he sold the boat to us, he installed central heating powered by a diesel heater. The thing is reliable as long as you keep the fuel tank filled, and it is relatively painless to maintain. However, heating a boat is not like heating a house. The physics of boats necessitates an entirely different paradigm for standards of comfort. How can I describe this? I know! Get a plastic baggy. I’ll wait.
      Got it? Now hold it in one hand so you can blow into it like a balloon. When you blow gently into the baggy it immediately inflates with warm, moist air. Little droplets start to condense on the inside. Hold this thought because that’s our boat in your hands.
      While our heater has a graduated temperature dial, it really should read like this: Off, Hot, Tropical. We attempt to set it at merely Warm but 9/10th of the dial is devoted to Tropical and Hot is a random fraction placed anywhere throughout a 220 degree range.
      When it’s on (please don’t forget the bit about remembering to keep the fuel tank full), we sit in balmy comfort in our salon stripped down to our underwear and providing a peep show to the entire marina through the broad salon windows. Then my husband goes outside to put the meat on the grill.
      (Open your hand. The one with the baggy. Flap it around. Just for giggles.) Immediately all the warm air rushes out to be replaced with the chill beauty of Seattle in winter. The entire boat drops roughly 50 degrees and our breath starts to frost. The kids dash to their cabins and layer up, grabbing blankets, pullovers and heavy booties. The meat comes in, and we tackle it with mitten-covered hands and butter knives.
      About five minutes later, the heater wakes up and decides we are not warm enough to its taste. Like an old porter at a seedy motel, it clears phlegm, meanders over to the fuel pump, and primes the motor with a sound like the gear teeth ratcheting in an antique elevator. Eventually, the fuel travels the epochal distance from the fuel tank to the other side of the boat wherein -- for some inexplicable reason -- resides the heater, and the diesel motor begins its take off. I use that phrase advisedly as the sound of our heater is precisely the same as that of a small commuter jet revving up and accelerating down the runway. When the heater achieves lift off, the fans kick on and abruptly the Arctic conditions in the boat toggle to tropical. We immediately strip to our skivvies.
      (Blow up your bag again.) Now this pendulum repeats when my youngest goes to the shore head. When my eldest shakes out the rugs after dinner. When Mommy gets a bucket of water for dishes.
      (Breathe heavily in and out of your bag until you pass out.) You still with me? No? Hmm. Maybe you should consider one of those Florida boats.
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