6 October Freezer upgrade

Keeping things cold in the tropics is a common friction point for sailing boats and we have listened to many tales of woe of freezers stopping working. Then it was our turn to tell a tale of defrosting woe.

A year ago when we were in the States the freezer had a couple of wobbles which we overcame but bought a stand alone car fridge/freezer box for emergencies. Then in February our freezer suddenly stopped. It could either be the compressor, the evaporator plate or the connection leaking refrigerant. The evaporator plate wasn't chilling. Could have been a speck of dirt within the capillary tube blocking refrigerant from circulating. We didn't know and reluctantly called in a refrigerant 'expert' who tried to help, but only succeeded in buggering the compressor and charging an exorbitant amount for the privilege.

freezer is under the seat

Roll on to Grenada where we are using our stand alone freezer unit. In Grenada we found both Budget Marine and Island Water World stocked new compressors and evaporator plates. We were able to buy both a new larger, more powerful compressor unit and a new, larger, longer evaporator plate.

the freezer on its side on the table

this is where it fits

David, always keen to do the best possible job decided we should lift out the freezer box to check that the insulation was in best condition. Easy to say, not so easy to do. There were well hidden screw fixings to find in the back of the galley cupboards and to the sides to be released before it could be lifted.

Once out it was easy to add extra insulation using a tin of expanding foam.

When the freezer box was removed it revealed the furthest forward of our three water tank access hatches...but that's another story in itself.

What do you do once you've pulled something apart? You have to reconstruct. The box was fitted back into place in the cabin sole. The new, more powerful compressor and cooling fan fixed in place. Two days were spent on constructing a perfect hand crafted 'box' from a flat evaporator plate to most efficiently fit the space with the corners hand crafted using a Heath Robinson contraption of boards, clamps and a length of 2” diameter piping for four optimum curved corners. Then attaching the new plate inside the freezer and finally, finally connecting the capillary tubes to the compressor, charging with refrigerant.

Success! We now have a reliable freezer which has the capacity to freeze to everything, even to the furthest corners.