Stoves

Although on Casulen II we had a double burner gimballed gas stove with a self-draining sealed gas box in the lazerette we decided to change it. The reasons behind this were that we never seemed to use more than one burner and the stove was getting suspect and needed regular attention, not a good sign for a gas stove on a small boat. Also the gas box took up a lot of room in the lazerette and we wanted to store a small outboard for the inflatable in there. We looked around at stoves and concluded that a fully gimballed Kuuma Seacook stove would fit the bill. The problem was that they didn’t appear to be for sale in the UK. Having exchanged a few emails with various US marine suppliers we still could not find out for sure if the European self sealing gas cylinders would fit and if not was there an adaptor available.

Eventually we just ordered the stove working on the theory that we could always change the burner if we had to. The stove duly arrived within about 5 days, and no, the European cylinders wouldn’t fit, so again no real surprises here. To our astonishment a standard Primus Mimer stove screwed straight in, the burner was even the same size. So out came the double burner and we made and fitted a storage shelf where the stove was. The stove itself was simplicity to fit with just four bolts to hold in the mounting plate. The end result should be a much easier stove to use on passage, no 10kg Calor bottle and gas box in the lazerette so room to fit in the 2hp tender outboard (although we will still have to store the disposable gas cylinders in the lazerette). We intend to use the Primus 450gm screw on disposable cylinders but any of the screw on disposable camping cylinders will fit. As these are universally available in the UK from camp sites, hardware stores etc supply should not be a problem.