Stuff That Works, Mechanical
Index
Cummins Diesel Engine, Model 6B5
Force10 Stove (Cooker)
Glacier Bay Refrigeration
Ideal Windlass
Northern Lights Generator, Model M643 (5KW)
Shurflo Pumps
Southworth Milton, SOS Oil Analysis Program
Tank Tender, Hart Systems
Cummins Diesel Engine, Model 6B5
www.cummins.com
Greg Sanborne, Billings Diesel, www.billingsmarine.com
We have a 120 hp naturally aspirated diesel engine that
has proven to be very reliable after some initial problems (see Gear
Failures & Fixes). We are religious about
maintenance schedules and oil changes but it has rewarded us with reliable
service for over 4000 hours. The Maine distributor—Cummins Northeast—and
Billings Diesel, Stonington Maine, have given us great service.
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Force10 Stove (Cooker)
This post will undoubtedly floor those of you who have read about our problems, some of them dangerous, with the Force10 stove. And I won’t kid you, we deeply and personally resent the time, effort and money expended over nearly two years that getting this stove working safely and properly has taken—it is simply not good enough in a premium product costing $1300.00.
Now I’ve got all that off my chest, let’s move on to the fact that, now that we have it fixed, Phyllis and I find the Force10 the best marine stove we have cooked on.
Stuff we like:
- Force10’s 'patented slide-away oven door', that “recesses underneath the oven to maximize galley space”, is great since we no longer get pushed out of the galley and strangled by our safety strap when opening the oven door.
- The 'push to spark, electronic' igniters are convenient and actually work, as long as you are willing to replace the actuation switches at least once a year.
- The three burner model is an efficient design since four pots do not fit in the limited amount of space available, no matter how many burners you have.
- The different BTU outputs of the three burners (one 8200BTU, two 3400BTU) allow us to move pots between burners depending on how much heat we need.
- The two small burners are great for simmering when turned right down, to the point that we recently threw away the heat diffusers that we had to use on the old stove for this purpose.
- The hinged and removable one piece grid over the cook top and the clean design of the top itself makes cleaning easy.
- The pot holder (to hold pots on the stove while in rough seas) system works better than that on most marine stoves although smaller pots tend not to be properly centered on the burner.
- The built-in oven heat diffuser plate helps to distribute the heat evenly throughout the oven, meaning that the back of stuff doesn’t burn horribly while the front is still raw, like with our old stove.
Suggestions for improvement:
- The 8200BTU large cook top burner needs to be larger still, say 10,0000-12,000BTU. The current large burner takes at least 20 minutes to bring a large pot of water to boil, say for pasta, and will not keep the pot on a rolling boil without a lid on (bad for pasta).
- The grill needs to be substantially larger in power and area. Right now it will barely cook one 8-oz steak. Anything bigger must be constantly moved around to avoid raw spots.
- The oven rack sliders are too wide, for no good reason that we can see, limiting the width of the oven and therefore the size of pans that can be used in it. The oven is small enough without unnecessarily decreasing usable space further .
In summary, if you expect the Force10 to work as well as even a basic household stove, you’ll be disappointed. But to be fair, household stoves do not have to fit into a small space, swing, and put up with a marine environment. Having said that, we regularly cook fairly elaborate dinners for up to six people on our Force10 and almost any meal that we can prepare on a household stove we can do on it, although this does take some planning and ingenuity.
If Force10 were to address the quality control issues we
experienced, provide
seamanlike mounts, and make the relatively small changes listed above,
they would have a fine product for live aboard voyaging boats that would
easily justify the premium price they charge for it. I do understand
that this market is small, but said changes would, I think, be rewarded
by increased sales to the more casual use market too.
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Glacier Bay Refrigeration
www.glacierbay.com
If you choose to have refrigeration on your boat, which we do as fulltime live-aboards, there is a price to be paid—refrigeration is a highly complex system. However, Glacier Bay is very reliable and, though expensive to purchase, very low in energy consumption.
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Ideal Windlass
www.idealwindlass.com
We have oversize anchors and chain to deal with tough conditions and so require an oversize windlass as well. Though we don’t like the extra weight on the bow, we think it’s worth it to have a reliable, quick way to weigh anchor, especially when a rapid retreat from ice is necessary. The Ideal Company deserves high marks for service as well. This is a truly rugged piece of gear that just keeps on ticking, despite the abuse we hand out to it.
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Northern Lights Generator, Model M643 (5KW)
www.northern-lights.com
Another piece of equipment that just keeps on working. Again we are religious with maintenance and oil changes but are rewarded with reliable service.
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Shurflo Pumps
www.shurflo.com
Finally, a pump that can actually work for three years without a rebuild! After years of 6-month rebuild schedules on our other pumps, we were ready for these!
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Southworth Milton, SOS Oil Analysis Program
Steve_Ahern@smilton.com
The SOS Services Laboratory provides a great service. Once you have set up an account with them, they will forward special oil sample containers to you that you then fill with a sample of oil taken each time you change the engine, transmission or generator oil. SOS Laboratory will then analyze it. They keep a running record of oil samples from each machine, meaning that any changes in oil content or metal wear levels will show up, potentially catching a problem before irrevocable damage is done.
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Tank Tender, Hart Systems
www.thetanktender.com
Our Tank Tender from Hart Systems is 20 years
old and one of the few pieces of original equipment left on Morgan’s
Cloud. For those of you not familiar with this unit, it relies on hand pumping air down a tube in the tank and then measuring the resultant pressure to determine fuel or water level. Our Tank Tender has helped us manage our fuel and water in some pretty remote places where it really mattered; like the east coast of Greenland where running out of fuel will result in a long and very chilly (we heat with diesel too) trip home. (We have carefully constructed a graph of liquid depth against volume of fuel or water remaining that is surprisingly accurate.)
At the end of our last cruise, the Tank Tender started to get a little flaky—still usable, but not its old reliable self. Even this failure was probably not the unit’s fault since it got drenched with salt water some years ago. We removed it, diagnosed a couple of bad valves and sent it back to Hart Systems.
Three weeks later it was returned (most of that time was for shipping) all cleaned up and in working order with a very reasonable invoice attached. Not only that, and without being asked, Hart included a new manual and a full set of tube ends just in case we had lost the manual (we had) or the tube ends had corroded (they hadn’t).
Sure, we could have replaced the unit with some fancy electronic system, but I wonder how many of those will still be working 20 years from now. Or, even more to the point, how many electronic systems of any type bought today will be obsolete, superseded, and not repairable just five years from now. My guess, based on bitter experience, is most of them. Makes you wonder if new, fancy and electronic is always, or even generally, a better way, doesn't it?
Not only is the Tank Tender great gear, but Hart
Systems are a pleasure to deal with: communicative, helpful and going
the extra mile by providing the tube ends and manual without even being
asked.
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