We have recently moved aboard our Dufour 382, and set sail across Atlantic to spend a year living aboard. In researching and assessing what we need to retrofit on the boat to make it more self-sustainable and more live aboard friendly, we knew we needed a freezer. Our yacht has the standard top opening, side opening fridge/’freezer’ even though nothing ever actually freezes unless it is directly touching one of the three cold plates. How can one survive without being able to freeze anything? We were not going to risk finding out, and made installing one of Dometic’s portable 12V freezer units one of our priorities.
First question was, where will this new unit live? As it is quite large and you need to be able to open the lid and access its contents regularly. It also had to be near a 12V power source, or a place we could wire one in easily. For our boat, we decided it would go under our chart table, where you would put your feet if you actually sat and used the table for its intended purpose, which we rarely do. The measurements for the space were almost exact to the CFX55 model, which can be set to -20°C and even allow us to have the luxury of ice living in the tropics. Does it get any better?
Now that we have recently finished our trans Atlantic crossing, and have been living aboard full time for a few months I wanted to take some time to give my thoughts and offer a rave review of this freezer. I do not know how we would have had enough food for the crossing if we did not have this installed. I was able to provision frozen whole chickens, cheese, butter, bacon, frozen croissants(French treat iykyk), pizzas, and easy stuff to pop in the oven for the kids like chicken nuggets. When you are double handing a 2800NM plus passage with two kids, cooking is the last thing you want to be doing all day. While underway, I certainly didn’t have time to make pizzas from scratch, even though we do this at home often, or homemade chicken nuggets or croissants. We also were able to freeze a bunch of our fruit that all ripened at once to make great smoothies throughout the crossing, fruit which would have otherwise been rotten and wasted.
The freezer has a light up LCD display and menu that lets you set the temperature you want. You could easily set it for a fridge temp and have it as a second refrigerator as well. Dometic has a blue tooth connected app so you can monitor the temp and energy consumption of the unit. Great innovative touch!
In conclusion, if you are planning to cross an ocean, move aboard your yacht or RV full time, and currently do not have a freezer, do not hesitate to go put your order in for any one of Dometic’s portable freezer units. You will not regret it! I can not imagine life aboard without having installed the CFX55. Eagerly looking forward to serving up endless ice cold drinks this year in the tropics.
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