Shoreline or not?

[Monnie]

I am in the process of choosing my first boat and thinking about shoreline which are understand is 240v. I will have some electrical appliances but plan to be as light as possible on them. Especially when out cruising. I plan to be in marina only in winter months. I do not intend to use a washing machine, TV, or microwave whilst out of marina. Also I was thinking of perhaps having a 3 way fridge as well. My question is should I reject boats that lack 240v? Or should I consider having it installed as I realise it is probably costly?  Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

[Bee]

Everything that you need can be done on 12 volt. Mains is really useful though and we make use of it whenever we can, we use it to charge batteries and overindulge in watching rubbish on the telly. We do not have a 240 volt 'system' on the boat, we just have a lead line that pokes in the wheelhouse door and plugs in to an ordinary battery charger. Others will no doubt think this is not good practice but ours is a simple and unsophisticated boat and in probably 12 years of wandering we have had no more than half a dozen very minor electrical problems. We have a 12 volt fridge that is a brilliant thing, last year we had temperatures of 43 deg. C in France but still had cold beer, snag is that it does use quite a lot of electric so we are careful how we use it, we also have a really cheap e bay inverter of just 300 (?) watts, this charges kindles, phones, cordless stuff and laptops. Electricity is always a problem on boats, making it and storing it so using it sparingly is a really good idea.

[Machpoint005]

You will probably find that most boats have provision for a shore line but the onboard systems are 12v DC. The boats that haven't a blue caravan-type plug'ole will be the (mch) older ones. 

 

[OldGoat]

Three way fridge (if you can still get them) is a NoNo. Potentially dangerous on gas, eats lot of electricity whether on shoreline or not.

If the thought of a BIG battery bank fills you with horror - then mebe a 12V fridge would do, but they're expensive and not of the best quality.

As Uncle Tim will probably say put in a 240V one and a decent battery bank plus a good inverter and relax...

 

[dmr]

If you plan to winter in a marina then a shoreline is a good idea, it might even be essential if the marina has rules about engine running. If you are a 12volt only boat then fitting a shoreline can be very basic, just needing the connector and a small battery charger, plus a galvanic isolator. Avoid the three way fridge if you can, they use loads of 12 volt power, a proper 12volt compressor fridge is much better, but they do cost.

 

If you plan to mostly CC then a marina might be good for the first winter, but in general winter boating is lovely, keeping the batteries charged is the only difficult bit.

 

................Dave

[Machpoint005]

Ours is an old 12v (only) fridge. It's fine other than in really hot weather, when it has to work very hard. In that sort of weather I'm happy with a beer at canal temperature. (The sort of beer that has to be served really cold is just disguising its lack of flavour.)

 

3 minutes ago, dmr said:

If you plan to winter in a marina then a shoreline is a good idea, it might even be essential if the marina has rules about engine running. If you are a 12volt only boat then fitting a shoreline can be very basic, just needing the connector and a small battery charger, plus a galvanic isolator. Avoid the three way fridge if you can, they use loads of 12 volt power, a proper 12volt compressor fridge is much better, but they do cost.

 

If you plan to mostly CC then a marina might be good for the first winter, but in general winter boating is lovely, keeping the batteries charged is the only difficult bit.

 

................Dave

^^ Wot he said, plus reading a book or listening to the radio uses a lot less battery than watching the goggle box.

 

 

[Tracy D'arth]

Electrolux 3 way fridge will eat batteries when on 12v, they are absorption not compressor fridges. They are OK on gas but have not been made for many a year,

They were never approved for boats but loads were fitted. You could not fit one in a new boat.

Proper new 12v fridges are expensive.  

[OldGoat]

Now it's getting more complicated.

Shopping is a pain whe cruising, so we have a 12/24V fridge freezer which eats electricity but makes ice nicely and stores quite a bit of frozen food. But a new one ie eyewateringly expensive. A mains FF would be cheeper and of better quaity build, thus more effieicent.

 You need to have a think and think what you really want to do and can you afford it. pay once and get it right...

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Electrolux 3 way fridge will eat batteries when on 12v, they are absorption not compressor fridges. They are OK on gas but have not been made for many a year,

They were never approved for boats but loads were fitted. You could not fit one in a new boat.

Proper new 12v fridges are expensive.  

I have a vauge recollection that 3 way fridges when fitted to older boats were not always flued to the outside of the boat.

 

The amount of CO generated was not deemed to be sufficient to be harmful given the size of the burner?? 

 

 

Edited August 6, 2020 by The Happy Nomad

[Tracy D'arth]

2 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

I have a vauge recollection that 3 way fridges when fitted to older boats were not always flued to the outside of the boat.

 

The ammount of CO generated was not deemed to be sufficient to be harmful given the size of the burner?? 

The flue was a daft thing to fit properly. Folk used to pull the fridges out to de-fluff the burner, push them back and not engage the flue.

I don't think that in these enlightened times that would be allowed.

[dmr]

6 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

 

^^ Wot he said, plus reading a book or listening to the radio uses a lot less battery than watching the goggle box.

 

 

An iPad or other tablet with internet access lets you download and watch anything that is worth watching. TV is bad because its so easy to turn it on then just watch anyrhing that it spews out of it. We go on holiday every year (two weeks in Cornwall in January) and thats the only time I watch tv as its a novelty. Over the years it has become total rubbish but I suspect people who watch it all the time just don't notice how bad its got.

 

.................Dave

[mrsmelly]

A can of worms indeed! To the op remember you will get replies from hobby boaters who own a house and run away from the boat often for months on end and you will get replies from liveaboards with only small experience on maybe only one boat and then there are those with more and varied experience. My twopenneth is I always bin the 12 volt stuff and use all mains with a quality inverter running 24/7 365 and a travel power for the hard work when not plugged into shoreline. Mains equipment is plentiful, easy to obtain, cheaper by miles and far more choice of sizes etc. However there is no right way and wrong way its whatever you feel you want. My first boat 30 odd years ago had a gas fridge and I loved it.

[ditchcrawler]

51 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

A can of worms indeed! To the op remember you will get replies from hobby boaters who own a house and run away from the boat often for months on end and you will get replies from liveaboards with only small experience on maybe only one boat and then there are those with more and varied experience. My twopenneth is I always bin the 12 volt stuff and use all mains with a quality inverter running 24/7 365 and a travel power for the hard work when not plugged into shoreline. Mains equipment is plentiful, easy to obtain, cheaper by miles and far more choice of sizes etc. However there is no right way and wrong way its whatever you feel you want. My first boat 30 odd years ago had a gas fridge and I loved it.

This is especially true if you plan to spend any amount of time on mains hook-up. the difference between a mains fridge and a 12 volt one is about £450 for identical units. I am a hobby boater but my inverter runs 24/7 I have a mains TV, fridge, coffee maker, slow cooker and kettle, probably £250 the lot. I have a Mastervolt true sine inverter. I don't have solar but I cruise every day so recharging batteries is not a problem for me.

[mrsmelly]

10 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

This is especially true if you plan to spend any amount of time on mains hook-up. the difference between a mains fridge and a 12 volt one is about £450 for identical units. I am a hobby boater but my inverter runs 24/7 I have a mains TV, fridge, coffee maker, slow cooker and kettle, probably £250 the lot. I have a Mastervolt true sine inverter. I don't have solar but I cruise every day so recharging batteries is not a problem for me.

Precisely this. If the question was put to people in house re would they buy naff 12 volt stuff or mains equipment they would think you were daft and say why the hell would I pay out for vastly more expensive poorer equipment when mains are available. Things have changed dramaticaly since I moved onboard, for instance there were no inverters and ninety percent of boats had one small alternater with a split charge relay. The problem is not the equipment after all its how to get the mains to power it all. Today with the equipment available its perfectly easy to have a fully mains boat and just have the lighting, water pumps etc from the 12 volt.

[PD1964]

No brainer get a 240v hook up, you will be using 240v appliances and if your in a Marina over winter use it. You’ll find life on a boat a bit boring in the winter so don’t make it more so without a 240v hook up, after all you don’t have to use it but it’s there if you need to. 
 You’ll find that the sensible boaters all use 240v and when they go into a Marina they all plug in if they can to recharge batteries, do washing, watch TV.

There’s no point making it difficult,  as above says listen to the full time livaboards as it’s completely different from hobby boating doing a weekend here and there.

[nicknorman]

If you are planning any significant time in a marina, get a mains-equipped boat. And make sure there is an immersion heater (unless it has a gas instantaneous water heater). If you have shore power, immersion heater and battery charger then there is never any need to run your engine and thus disturb you and your neighbours.

[Bee]

Yeah 240 v is ok but if you want to know if a circuit is live and its 12 volt you just touch the wires to your tongue - if it tingles its live. You can't do that with 240 volt (Do I need to say that's a joke and don't try this at home?)

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, Bee said:

Yeah 240 v is ok but if you want to know if a circuit is live and its 12 volt you just touch the wires to your tongue - if it tingles its live. You can't do that with 240 volt (Do I need to say that's a joke and don't try this at home?)

I thought it was very good advice

[Richard10002]

I suppose the advice that you probably wont kill yourself with 12v stuff, but you could with 240v stuff, is valid. However, as most boats have a 240v system, as well as the 12V system, it's generally not a factor that most people take into account.

 

Where possible, I use 12V stuff, mostly because my inverter draws 4A even when powering nothing, so I only turn it on when I need it, and hope not to forget to turn it off when I've finished using it. You can get inverters that draw less than 1A acquiescent current, which might be an overhead I might consider.

 

In the scheme of thing, you will find that lots of things that you buy for home, and which you think run off 240v, actually come with an AC to DC converter, so they can be run off 12V with the appropriate adapter and connector. My boat is kitted out almost as well as my home, and I have 2 TVs, a soundbar, a router, car stereo head unit, laptops, phones, tablet, digital piano, toothbrush, that all came with 240 volt power supplies, but all of which run from the 12V system. The only things that I turn the inverter on for is an HP printer, and to charge the Dyson V6.

 

People talk about the cost of a 12V fridge, which cost around £450 to £600, but you only buy them once in many years, and your boat will come with a fridge which will probably last you a long time. When I was looking for a new fridge a few years ago, I didn't see one that was small enough to fit my space and which ran off 240V, although I wasn't looking too hard for a 240V version.

 

If I were you I would buy the boat that I liked. If it has a 240V system, all good, if it doesn't have one, you could live with the boat for a while and see how you get on with it.

 

You will almost certainly want a shoreline facility for battery charging, which is a simple addition, (inlet socket, wire, Consumer unit, wire to charger, and/or wire to 240V socket. If you want 240V sockets around the boat, it's a bit more complicated because it needs wires around the boat, which ought to be hidden if possible.

 

I would be surprised if you found many boats without a shoreline input, if only for battery charging.

[Monnie]

Thanks everyone for all the amazing helpful advice!!! Things do seem so much clearly. 

[IanD]

5 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I thought it was very good advice

A friend of mine at uni used to test for live mains with the back of a knuckle on his right hand if he didn't have anything else -- if it's live the shock pulls your hand away and is less likely to affect the heart than using the left hand. Claimed he could feel the difference between incoming mains ("smoother") and chopped mains from a dimmer ("buzzier").

 

In no way would I recommend this, but he's still alive... ?

[tehmarks]

Shore power is straightforwrd to fit on a boat that already has a 12V-driven 240V system - it's just a case of adding a 16A plug mounted somewhere appropriate, and cabling it and the inverter output to a changeover switch or similar. If it doesn't have any form of 240V already, then it's obviously a case of running cable in and installing sockets where you want them too as well. None of it is difficult if you have some basic electrical knowledge. I wouldn't discount a boat over it, because it's easily rectified post-purchase.

[cuthound]

On 07/08/2020 at 15:17, IanD said:

A friend of mine at uni used to test for live mains with the back of a knuckle on his right hand if he didn't have anything else -- if it's live the shock pulls your hand away and is less likely to affect the heart than using the left hand. Claimed he could feel the difference between incoming mains ("smoother") and chopped mains from a dimmer ("buzzier").

 

In no way would I recommend this, but he's still alive... ?

 

Indeed, in the early days of my career, when I was on the tools and before the introduction of H&S, I was expected to work on everything live. Had numerous 240 volt shocks and a few 415 volt shocks, but fortunately I survived.

 

A couple of wheezes we used to get up to was connecting the mains to the workshop door handle to give the next person to use it a bit of a surprise, and pouring metal polish onto the workbench, igniting it with a spark from wires pushed into the neutral & live of a socket and then lighting a cigarette from the resulting fire.

 

Happy days. ?

 

 

[Glynn]

Shorelines are just modified rebadged LEC's, so are a cheap fridge really as i understand it.

I have one,it's 'ok' but if/when ig faults I will replace it with a proper 240v mains fridge which are much better at their job.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Glynn

[Paul Gwilliams]

7 minutes ago, cuthound said:

Happy days. ?

 

Indeed, wind up "Meggers" were good especially on a long length of pyro, pug guns  and some of the old timers were sadists and got jollies out of tormenting apprentices. 

 

Didn't help if you we're a gobby apprentice like I was?. Still didn't affect me...... where's me tablets

 

However one bit of wisdom I still remember is that it doesn't help to get a shock every now and then, it just reminds you that it bites if you don't treat it with respect.

 

Happy to work on all sorts of mains installations, 12v still perplexes me and as for 240v on a tin tub on a muddy pond ? I've RCD'ed everything separately from feed to final circuit and as with the 12v every circuit will be separate with its own protection.