Practical Boat Owner - February 2016

➜

PRACTICAL

Circumventing obstacles and applying painstaking

measurements: David Berry recalls the chill factors

which had to be addressed in order to replace his

boat’s 61lt fridge with a more modern, effi cient, 87 lt model

A tale of two fridges

W

hen the fridge

in your kitchen

at home dies

you pop to the

shop, buy a

replacement, slip the broken

one out and slip the new one

into the vacated space. When

the fridge on your boat needs

replacing, you’re likely to fi nd

that it came fi rst and the boat

was built around it. This is a

tale of close measurements

and unforeseen obstacles,

offered to you in the hope

of saving you shock and

heartache should you ever

need to change your fridge.

Our Moody Eclipse 33 Aderyn

Glas came with a 61lt fridge built

into a locker. In the spring of 2015

we had the opportunity to upgrade

it to an 87lt unit of more modern

and effi cient design. We didn’t

want to hack the woodwork about

so the fridge we chose had to fi t in

the existing locker. We measured

the space available, the front

opening and the aperture in the

top of the locker I had cut with a

hacksaw blade all those years ago

in order to fi t a cooling fan. We

wanted to keep the fan to remove

BEFORE

1

2

the heated air from the rear of the

fridge, then we went looking for a

fridge that would fi t and found a

Vitrifrigo 90i would fi ll the space

perfectly. We blinked at the cost

and wondered why a fridge for a

boat should cost fi ve times that of

a larger one for the kitchen, but we

bought it from Penguin and ran it

in for a couple of months at home

without trouble. It looked very nice

sat on the worktop in our utility

room and hummed quietly to itself,

taking a negligible amount of

energy to keep the wine cool. We

took it to Greece in the back of

our car wondering, as we drove

past the Vitrifrigo factory in Italy,

why we hadn’t bought one there,

particularly since the exchange

rate was so good at the time.

The decorative door had to go to allow

the new fridge door to open fully and to

provide more volume for the 87lt unit

AFTER

Behind this door

is the original 61lt fridge