Equipping your yacht's galley with the right appliances can help to ensure that you can prepare and enjoy meals with ease while out on the water. But which ones should you get?
After living on a boat for a few years now there's some appliances I love and others I can live without, but being real my boat galley preferences don't suit everyone. So to help, here's a guide to the essential yacht galley appliances you should consider for your sailing home including some of the potential pros and cons.
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Fridge and Freezer
For most boat owners, fridges and freezers are essential appliances needed to store and preserve perishable foods and keep drinks including milk and juice cool. Most private sailboats don't have a full sized household fridge-freezer, instead they come with compact marine fridges and freezers that are designed to maximize space and energy efficiency. These models often have a dual-voltage feature to run on both AC and DC power and are generally made using stainless steel components, a common material for marine galley appliances.
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Our Experience
Aboard our Leopard Catamaran we have 3 different brands of refrigeration appliance, some of which are more specific to the marine industry.
In the saloon we have a Vitrifrigo draw freezer and an Isotherm draw fridge and freezer, both brands that supply to the marine industry. The Isotherm replaced the original Vitrifrigo dual unit during the warranty works on our boat. Both units work relatively well, but we notice they tend to frost up more frequently and it's worth having spare doors seals if you can get them for an affordable price.
Something to keep in mind when buying a marine freezer is that some brands put in their manual that the freezer is only for maintaining the temperature of already frozen items, not for freezing unfrozen foods.
The hero on our boat when it comes to refrigeration and cooling is our Engel MD80FS fridge and freezer, which is the 240v equivalent of the Engel MT80. We chose the brand based in part on the positive experiences we'd had with the smaller sized Engel back in Australia, with our parents and grandparents owning them for decades without issue. On the boat we use it as a deep freezer and it uses less power than the other, two but can be a little noisy so we've added anti-vibration foot pads.
Microwave
On a yacht microwaves can have two uses; to reheat food and to act as a rudimentary faraday cage to protect electronics during a lightening storm. The size of the microwave usually depends on the size of the galley, and should be securely mounted or tied down to ensure it doesn't go flying across the boat in rough seas.
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Our Experience
We have a large Samsung microwave that generally gets used to warm drinks, reheat leftovers, defrost meat and steam vegetables. During lightning storm we unplug it and put important electronic devices inside, including phones, laptops and the EPIRB; it's there so we may as well try to be safe instead of sorry.
Something to keep in mind if you have 240 V appliances is most of those appliances will run at 50 Hz. In some places like the Caribbean where the normal voltage is 120 V, the 240 V power supplied by yards and marinas will be 60 Hz instead. This can damage and break electric motors and pumps inside your galley appliances. To get around this, we charge our boat at night and run off battery during the day.
Coffee Machine
I often say our boat runs on three things; wind, diesel and coffee! For us having a good coffee machine was essential, and most boat owners we know have some kind of coffee machine aboard. Some popular unpowered options are the French press, stove top coffee maker and AeroPress. For a compact powered solution there's capsule machines while coffee snobs may prefer a full espresso machine.
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Our Experience
Coffee is serious business in Australia with neighborhood cafes and boutique coffee shops generally outcompeting chain shops. While we were working, we calculated how much the three of us spent on coffee a year then put in together and bought our kitchen a Breville Dual Boiler with a Breville Smart Grinder. When we left land life behind the coffee machine came with us and now that it's on the boat we look after it carefully!
The only issue we've had is forgetting to empty the drip tray before setting sail and having to clean up the contents after turning into a beam sea to put the main sail up and having the contents fly across the saloon...
Oven
Marine ovens are usually smaller than household ovens with less functions and features. They can be fueled by gas or electricity which impacts how you manage resources on the boat. Some models, generally those installed on monohulls, are on a gimble so they move with the waves.
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As an alternative to having a traditional built in oven, some liveaboard cruisers choose to get a multi function countertop oven such as the Ninja Foodi or Breville Smart Oven.
Our Experience
Our Leopard 45 catamaran came with an Eno oven. Many people with this boat take the oven out and either don't have an oven or choose an electric counter top, model, but we chose to keep ours. Admittedly it uses quite a bit of gas but if we're near somewhere that it's easy to refill I like to use it to bake bread, cookies, cakes, apple crumble and make roast lamb, potato bake, baked fish or reverse seared steak.
Kitchen Cook Top
One of main ways people cook on board is with a stove top that's either on the bench top, part of a gimbal oven or a portable unit. Like the ovens they can be gas or electric, with most electric stove tops being induction. Many cruisers use pot holders or bars to prevent pots and pans from falling off or flying across the galley while underway.
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Our Experience
As part of the aftermarket works on our boat we changed the original 3 burner stove top for a 4 burner Miele gas cooktop. After having induction in the house I didn't want it on the boat, and using gas lessens the power consumption on our electrical system.
As a backup, I also have a 240 V plug-in induction cook top similar to the Duxtop model, which comes out at times when we're low or out of gas. Having that redundancy was part of making sure our galley was ready for long passages and remote area sailing.
Dishwasher
While dishwashers are quite common in homes, they're less so on boats. That being said there are compact, marine friendly dishwashers which are designed to fit small spaces and operate efficiently.
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Our Experience
Getting a dishwasher was an option on our boat but we chose to have an additional freezer instead. It would be possible to put one where the oven is as part of aftermarket works, but for us we felt that hand washing was no big deal and we'd rather have the oven. We have friends who do have the dishwasher and love it, running it once a day or every second day.
Multi Cooker
A multi cooker is a versatile appliance that combines several cooking functions into a single appliance, such as pressure cooking, slow cooking, and sautéing. In a yacht having one appliance that can do multiple things helps save space and creates a wider range of cooking options.
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Our Experience
We have an Instant Pot Duo Crisp and it is brilliant! The main functions we use are air fry, pressure cook, slow cook, dehydrate and sauté, changing the lid depending on what we're doing.
It's especially good when precooking meals for passage but out on the water I need be mindful of the power consumption and it is bulky to try and store. Despite any negatives though, it's one of my favourite appliances on the boat.
Multi-Function Stick Blender
In the galley I like having a blender, food processor and electric mixer. With a multi-function stick blender you get a compact, hand held device that can do all of these tasks while taking up minimal space.
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Our Experience
I love our stick blender so much that when we next go somewhere with 240 V appliances I'm buying a spare! It gets used almost on a daily basis, far more than when I was living in a house. I put that down to having to make more recipes from scratch, as things like premade curry pastes, pastry, coconut milk and marinades aren't always available. Also with there being so much fresh fruit around we drink more smoothies and fruit shakes.
The one attachment we don't really use is the whisk, as I'd rather use a hand whisk to get the job done.
Juicer
If you're sailing in the tropics fresh fruit can be abundant, but finding fresh juice that's not from concentrate can be much trickier. A juicer extracts juice from fruits and vegetables, including oranges, mangoes, pineapple and watermelon. If you like fresh juice they're absolutely a galley appliance worth considering, but otherwise it can be a waste of space.
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Our Experience
The juicer we have aboard is a second hand juicer that belonged to a family member. It is decades old yet works like a champ and we use it far more often than we thought.
When it comes to having a sweet beverage, we'd rather drink fresh juice than juice from concentrate or a soft drink. Depending on what fruit is available we'd go through 3L of fresh juice a week making the juicer a valuable addition to our sailboat galley.
When this one eventually goes to the appliance grave yard I'll be looking to replace it with something like the Ninja Cold Press Juicer or Hamilton Beach Centrifugal Juicer.
Ice Maker
Ice makers are a bit of a divisive one but essentially if you have the space and go through a lot of ice they can be very useful. Many cruisers opt for a bench top ice maker but it is possible to get a built in machine that's connected to the boats water system.
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Our Experience
We have a bigger Polar C-Series counter top ice maker chosen because we all like ice in our drinks and wanted a machine with the capacity to keep up with production. The unit has rubber feet so doesn't slide as the boat rocks and gives us the choice of 3 different sizes of ice blocks. As a counter top unit we do have to manually fill and empty the water, but prefer that over an inbuilt model as it's easier to replace if the unit were to break.
Our Polar C-Series is European and can make 17kg in 24 hours, but there is a more compact unit that can do 11kg. For Americans, the closest equivalent by design and capacity would be something like the Newair 50 lb model.
Conclusion
Outfitting your yacht with the ideal boat galley appliances can significantly enhance your onboard living experience. From preserving food with a fridge and freezer to preparing the ultimate culinary experience with a stove top and oven, each appliance serves a specific purpose.
Consider the pros and cons of each item to determine what best fits your needs, space, and power availability, because with the right setup, you can enjoy the comforts of home while sailing the open seas.
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