Winterizing a Catamaran and Oneself

Zephyr in Alaska 2018

New Zealand in the winter isn’t on most world cruisers agendas but this winter, pretty much the entire fleet that crossed the south pacific in 2019 is here. 

I’d spent pretty much the entire summer working on Zephyr in a boat yard in Whangarei. After two years of sailing, she was in need of some serious love. Perpetually covered in paint, fiberglass dust, and grease, the promise of sailing to Fiji in May kept me going on those long hot days. Sacrificing the best months of the year would all be worth it I told myself.

Then in March and April, it became clear that sailing to the tropics was not going to be in the cards. The Marshall Islands was the first to close their boarders. Fiji was the last. The entire South Pacific was now closed. The only option for Zephyr was now to stay put in New Zealand. 

I’d had a crew of awesome folks lined up to sail to Fiji in May. Amanda from Hawaii flew in early during the period in March when new restrictions were popping up every day. She arrived two days before NZ completely shut its boarders for what had been months and could be years. Without a doubt she must have been one of the last few hundred foreigners to arrive in New Zealand. 

Having grown up in Florida and having worked in South America and Hawaii before, she had never seen the snow before. She had literally never encountered “winter”. During New Zealand’s lockdown, as every day grew a little shorter, and a little chillier, she in particular was gravely worried. The very first sail she was chilled to the bone. How would she survive? 

In life, it always makes sense to work with the resources you have rather than to wish you had different ones. In Zephyr’s case, I vowed to spend the time immediately after lockdown winterizing her as best I could. Amanda, after going through some processing decided to charge NZ winter and head south into the mountains.

So, what are the immediate issues with making a sailboat winter cruise ready?

1 - Heat

2 - Hot Water

3 - Cabin humidity

4 - Power

Now, the easiest way to address all of these items is to go into a marina and plug in……but “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” I wanted to make sure Zephyr would still be fully capable of being a remote off the grid platform even in the dead of winter. Additionally, after months of working on Zephyr, my soul needed adventure. It is hard to find that tied up to a dock.

Zephyr already had a hydronic diesel heater…..but after a year of non-use the 30yr old heater appeared to be completely broken. Additionally, a hydronic heater works by heating up coolant and running that throughout the vessel to radiators which recirculate air. This can address #1 by heating the boat, and it can also address #2 but unfortunately it does nothing for #3 and consumes a TON of power (4-5Amps) making power management issues (#4) worse. In Alaska in 2018, this was acceptable because the summer days were long but without much power coming in through solar that wasn’t going to work in New Zealand winter.

So, in order to augment the hydronic heater already on Zephyr (after it was repaired) I decided to install a second forced air diesel heater in the other hull. A forced air diesel heater works by taking in air from outside the cabin, heating it up and running the hot air through ducts to the cabins where they are needed. Since air is being taken from outside, they also address cabin humidity (#3). Additionally they are far quieter than hydronic heaters and take very little power to run. I have gone 4 days without shutting mine off at times. Lewis and Alyssa (insta @ridethetrades) had installed one in their Island Packet sailboat during lockdown and after experiencing their toasty/dry cabin one evening I was sold. They installed a “Wallas” heater which honestly appears to be really well built. They joked that it was the Rolls Royce of diesel heaters given that their model has bluetooth controls and a slick burgundy red anodized finish. I went with a Wallas as well utilizing their smaller 2.2kW model. I was a little worried that it would be too small, but given that I’m either only heating the saloon cabin or my personal cabin, it is plenty. The model sips diesel, using about 0.1L per hr when running. With full diesel tanks I could run the heater for more than 4 months straight. 

The Rolls Royce of Diesel Heaters

The only technical issue left to address to make winter sailing fun is electrical power. As much as I wish there was a green method of addressing power, there simply isn’t. Solar is hampered by the short days, low sun angles, and frequent overcast. Wind generators are not something that can be counted on. Hydro generators obviously only work while sailing. 

To highlight the issues with solar, even the best of winter days, I’ve only been able to produce about 140% of my solar array’s wattage as watthours (ex: 1.1kW solar produced 1.5kwhr of power or 110amphrs into the battery). This is barely enough to keep the fridge and freezer running. Most days are overcast and produce far less power than 110amphrs. I’ll be upgrading my solar array to almost 2kw this winter as well but this will still fall a bit short.

So, the only option is a generator.

A suitcase generator like the Honda Eu10i  and Honda Eu22i are the obvious solutions. At 13kg and 22kg respectively they are lightweight. Both make about 80-90amphrs (12V) of electricity per liter of gasoline. With about a liter of gasoline per day, plus the meager amount of electricity that Zephyr can harvest from the sun, I can easily meet her power needs for winter cruising.

One could use their diesel engine’s alternator but this is a much more expensive and wasteful solution. On Zephyr, to get the alternator running fully requires an engine RPM that burns ~2 liters of fuel per hr. This is almost half the efficiency. Additionally, putting hours on a $10k inboard diesel engine vs a $1.5k easily replaceable item doesn’t seem prudent.

So, unfortunately the cost of living at anchor in comfort during winter requires a bit of fuel. About 1.5 liters of diesel per day and 1 liter of gasoline. The fuel required though is still far less than what would be required to sustain a residence ashore though. A typical commuter in the US will use a car tank worth of fuel every week. This adds up to faaaaaaar more. Additionally, the fuel costs work out to abut $4 kiwi per day. A marina cost more than $40 kiwi per day.

Granted, I wish there were viable technical options for living entirely green during winter on a boat while not becoming a soggy popsicle. Perhaps widely available bio-diesels would be a great solution.

While I was making all the above magic happen, Amanda had gone down to the South Island to face her mortal enemy. The snow. She came back bundled up in Kathmandu gear (New Zealand’s REI) brighteyed and bushy tailed. She was ready to go for a two week winter sail along with Marty, Dixie and Aaron to go find some tuna offshore.  It was without a doubt one of the best two weeks I’ve had sailing and it would never have happened unless I’d decided to make Zephyr fun and comfortable in winter conditions. We were definitely tired of winning by the end of it. 

The ancient kiwi adage - there isn’t such a thing as bad weather, just bad gear comes to mind.

Snow struck