We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. It will be a little quiet on here for a week or so as we enjoy the festivities over the Christmas period, but we would like to thank you all for reading these pages and listening and contributing to the adventures of a very special little boat and her crew.Merry Christmas one and all and we will see you all bright and early in the New Year.Best WishesNaughty-Cal (the skipper), Liam (who thinks he is the skipper) and Rachael (the galley slave)
It is that time of year again when the boating forums are full of people asking questions on how to reduce condensation aboard their boats. The simple answer of course is to increase the ventilation flow through the boat which will greatly reduce and often eliminate condensation build up altogether and reduce the amount of water vapour produced on board.Some boats seem to be more prone to condensation than others which can only be put down to construction methods and poor insulation installations. Boats with large windows often suffer streaming condensation as a result of warm water bearing air coming into contact with large cold surfaces; double glazing isn’t as yet common place on boats. We have spent years improving the construction of our houses to provide better insulating properties, yet boat builders seem to ignore the lessons which have already been learnt elsewhere.We are quite lucky with Naughty-Cal in that her construction is a naturally insulating structure, the air gap between the two skins acting as a natural barrier to the colder air outside. That coupled with the small windows and hatches provide an effective force against condensation build up in the cabin. We do provide lots of ventilation throughout the boat whilst we are aboard with the windows open and the hatches cracked open to provide lots of air flow around the cabin even in the coldest of weather. This needn’t mean that the boat is cold though as the heating system compensates for the temperature difference keeping the cabin toasty warm even on the coldest of days. The cockpit area does suffer with some condensation during very cold, still mornings which is hardly surprising given the canvas and plastic construction, but a few hours with the diesel heating on soon dries things out again. If there has been a breeze during the night the air flow around the cockpit keeps the area nice and dry but as the cockpit is designed to get wet, condensation here doesn’t cause a problem like it would in the cabin area of the boat.Reducing the amount of condensation you produce on board also helps to keep your boat dry during the winter months. Cooking, bathing and breathing are the biggest contributors to condensation build up. Breathing you can’t do much about but it is possible to cut down on cooking condensation. Putting lids on pans on the hob, only boiling the kettle when necessary, using a slow cooker, and only washing pots when you have to will all reduce the amounts of steam produced. Where possible using land based shower facilities will also reduce condensation amounts considerably onboard. We are now only using our boat shower when away from our home berth, using the marina facilities most of the time instead.There are a few other ways in which you can help keep a dry boat, ensuring your bilges are dry will cut down on moisture aboard and is good housekeeping anyway. Stagnant bilge water will start to smell very quickly. If you have a really bad problem with condensation then a dehumidifier may help to reduce the moisture aboard and keep the cabin dry but this does rely on a reliable shore power source. We use desiccant filled bags to aid keeping our cabin dry as it is a reasonably small area and given the amount of times during a winter that they need to be taken home and dried out, then I would say that they are reasonably effective at keeping moisture at bay. They may not be suitable for all boats however due to the limited protection that they can offer to larger spaces.Reducing condensation is something that all boat owners should take seriously as the moisture can be a breeding ground for moulds and other fungus’s which can cause health problems as well as widespread damage to fixtures and fittings if left unchecked. Good housekeeping and adequate ventilation should however banish the beasties and help keep your boat dry and condensation free.
How has it gotten to be Wednesday already? This week is just flying by and I can’t keep up, what with work, wrapping present, delivering presents. At this rate we won’t be finished in time for the weekend!
Anyway last weekend was another lively one. The quiet evening we had promised ourselves didn’t happen, we were kidnapped by our friends on Wish You Were Here and forced to drink lots of Budweiser. Terrible really and we suffered for it on Saturday when we could have really done with being fully alert.So on Saturday, we had a relatively late start for us, not getting up until about 9am before showering and heading out to finish the Christmas shopping in Lincoln. It was busy in town so we hurriedly did our remaining bits of purchasing before retreating to the calmness of the marina for the afternoon. Later that afternoon before it got dark we took Naughty-Cal over to our friend’s house in readiness for our evening meal. Devocean was already positioned on her neighbours mooring so all we had to do was stern in to the pontoon and leave room for Wish You Were Here beside us. We spent the evening swapping stories, drinking Bud again and eating fine food before all retiring to warm beds late in the evening, well oiled and ready to crash out.I was first up on Sunday and as you already know prepared dinner in plenty of time for eating later that evening. Then we sat and drank coffee to ease the hangovers and relaxed with the local radio station playing in the background whilst reading the paper and tackling the puzzle pages. It wasn’t until about midday that we eventually made our way back to our own moorings, where we wrapped up some of our Christmas presents and entertained our guests. Sunday was a quiet day and we really did very little onboard bar filling up the water tank and hosing down the bathroom, we will have to make up for that next Saturday. We eventually enjoyed a delightful evening meal before hitting the sack early, ready for a busy week ahead and what a busy week it has proven to be so far. It doesn’t look likely to get any quieter before Friday either.
We had our first slow cooked meal on Sunday and it was simply amazing. Slow cooked Jerk chicken with sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli and stuffing. Quite why it has taken us so long to embrace the slow cooker is beyond me already after just one meal. We will certainly be preparing many more meals in the slow cooker if this last one is anything to go by. So simple to prepare and so simple to cook yet with excellent results. The only thing I did find strange was having to leave it alone all day. I like to be a hands on cook so leaving a dish in the corner all day with the lid on was a strange one on me. I was up first on Sunday morning so it fell to me to prepare and start Sunday lunch which wasn’t difficult in the least; even the most novice cook can do this one, trust me. I greased the bottom of the cooking pot and put a layer of chopped up sweet potatoes on the bottom, sprinkling some Jerk seasoning over them and tossing them to make sure they were all well coated with oil and seasoning . Next I added the small whole chicken, about 1.25kg, on top of the sweet potatoes, oiling the skin and sprinkling with a good dose of Jerk herbs and spices, salt and pepper, before squeezing over the juice of a lemon, making sure that some of the lemon juice was sprinkled on to the sweet potatoes as well. I placed the squeezed lemon in the chicken’s body cavity for some extra lemony zing to the meat which also worked really well. Then I stuck the cooker on high and sat back with some coffee and the paper and let the cooker do its business whilst I did battle with the crossword and Sudoku. This is so simple it defies belief, after an hour on high the cooker was turned down to low and left to its own devices for about seven hours whilst we went about our daily chores and entertained our guests for the afternoon. An hour and a half before we wanted to eat I added the chopped broccoli and carrots and the stuffing balls, positioning them around the chicken and turned the cooker up to high again for that last blast of heat. The result was a super succulent chicken, cooked to perfection and falling off the bone with tender vegetables and perfect stuffing. This has to be one of the easiest forms of cooking around, plus as everything is cooked in the same pot there isn’t much washing up to do afterwards, excellent. On the back of this success I have decided that Christmas dinner will be cooked in the slow cooker as well, turkey should be just as good as chicken in theory when cooked this way. I will add a coating of butter to the Turkey breast though as it will have less fat compared to the chicken so this should help to keep it succulent. The slow cooker will take all of the stress out of attempting to cook a three course dinner on board Naughty-Cal, as the main course will pretty much look after itself, leaving just the starter to cook prior to us eating and the dessert to prepare at some time during Christmas morning. Looks like this year’s Christmas dinner will be a doddle and I will get to go to the pub for that Christmas dinner time pint as well. If the weather stays good we might even be able to take the boat out for a Christmas day cruise, something we have as yet been unable to do either due to bad weather or other family commitments. One other point in favour of the slow cooker and one well worth considering is the lack of condensation created when compared to cooking on the traditional gas hob. There was a noticeable lack of condensation throughout the slow cooking process, something which can only be a good thing onboard a boat during the winter months when condensation can become a major headache unless adequate ventilation is provided.It is safe to say that we are already very impressed with the slow cooker and this will be the first of many meals cooked onboard Naughty-Cal with this one, both on our home berth and on our travels during the summer months. We also have plans to purchase a second slow cooker for at home so that we can enjoy slow cooked meals at home after work. This could be the start of some great grub discoveries.
With a splattering of snow on the ground another weekend has rolled on around. We have a busy weekend in store this week so tonight is going to be our only chance to relax and unwind with a few drinks and some good food whilst tucked up cosy and warm on Naughty-Cal. The heating will have already switched on by the time we arrive so she should be lovely and warm, ready for our arrival.Saturday will be mostly taken up with Christmas shopping. I have bought the presents for the adults today so it will be shopping for the kids on Saturday. Trawling around the busy Lincoln high street isn’t my idea of fun but needs must. We will finish the mornings shopping off with a trip to the markets to stock up with food for the week ahead. With this thankless task out of the way it will be time to head back to the marina and give the bottom of the dinghy a scrub. We gave her bum a clean to rid her of the algae growth before hoisting her onto the davits but she still has a rather unsightly lime scale mark on her hull. We have been reliably informed that Cillit Bang will remove this so are going to give it a go over the weekend. With this done we can have a couple of hours to relax before heading across the lake to our friends house for dinner. If the lake isn’t frozen we are taking the boat across and will spend the night on their mooring. If there is ice forecast it will be a long walk around the estate to reach their house.On Sunday we will be trying out our new slow cooker. So it will be a reasonably early start for me to get the meat and vegetables prepped and in the pot. Then we should have time for a spot of breakfast before we are descended on by yet more friends. No doubt we will have a few drinks and if time and the weather allow we will probably have a trip in to Lincoln and the pub on the way back. Before dinner we will have the dreaded task of wrapping Christmas presents helped along I hope by a few drinks and some good music. Then we can finally settle in, enjoy our slowly cooked, and hopefully beautiful dinner before getting ready for bed and ready to come home on Monday morning.Another busy weekend in store then.
We have finally gotten around to ordering a small capacity slow cooker for the boat. We have been after one for quite a while now but have always seemed to have better ways to spend our cash. With the onset of winter and the need for homely, comfort food, and the eventual installation of the inverter on Naughty-Cal, we have run out of excuses for not jumping in and making the purchase. So the order has been made for a 3.3 litre Tesco branded stainless steel slow cooker complete with non stick removable interior cooking bowl and a glass lid for ease of cleaning and use. This should be the ideal size for the boat, cooking for two easily with the ability to stretch to meals for four should the need arise.Looking at the quoted power consumption figures we will be fine to use the thing whilst we are away from our mooring. At 100 to 150 watts, depending on what setting it is on, it will consume around about 12.5Ah at 12 volts plus a little more for inverter losses so around the 15Ah mark. We could safely leave this running for around 6 or 7 hours whilst moored up away from electric hook up before we start to abuse our batteries, taking them below the magic 50% state of charge. Whilst out and about cruising, the alternator will easily provide the necessary power for the cooker as well as extra for battery charging so it seems to be a sensible idea to extend our available cooking capacity easily and at a bargain price. At this time of year it is unlikely that we will be away from our berth and the electricity bollard for those amounts of time, but it will allow us to prepare a nice stew or Sunday lunch and leave it cooking for the day whilst we go about our daily business and enjoy a few pints in the pub, the meal still cooking away in the galley. During the summer months we will be cruising for longer which will mean that we can prepare our evening meal in the morning, cruise all day and have the meal quietly cooking away whilst we cruise along the waterways. We must ensure it is stored safely and kept upright whilst we have a meal in the pot though, which could take some thinking about at the speeds we can travel, otherwise it could get messy in the galley!The next issue is storing the cooker. At 3.3 litres it isn’t the biggest slow cooker in the world but neither is Naughty-Cal the biggest boat in the world and with all of the clobber we have on board it will take some squeezing in. Top of the list of places to house it is the starboard locker which already houses the toaster, it will need a clearout though and some other items relocating around the boat. I suspect Saturday will be spent trying to wedge the cooker into a tight space.Now we just need to experiment with some tasty meals to cook in our new gadget. So do any of you out there have any great recipes for slow cooker cooking? I already have one for a beer basted pork joint and vegetables which I am going to try out on Sunday for our evening meal and a beef goulash recipe that I am told is to die for, so any other great ideas out there?
We tried this for the first time last night and it was delicious. Very simple to prepare, it tooK maybe ten minutes to prepare including watching parts of the evening news.For this simple dish you will need:
· Readymade puff pastry
· Tomato puree
· Grated cheese
· Mozzarella
· Sliced tomatoes
· PepperoniPreparation couldn’t be simpler, preheat the oven to 200 degrees, grease a baking tray and roll your pastry out to fit the greased tray. Next score a line about 1cm from the edge of your pastry; this will make the crust puff up around the edges. Next spread the tomato puree over your puff pastry base and sprinkle on half of your grated cheese. Then with the base covered in grated cheese arrange slices of mozzarella, tomato and pepperoni on top and finally sprinkle the rest of your grated cheese on top. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and lovely and crisp and flaky. Serve hot with fresh salad and dressing and everyone is bound to like this easy and delicious tart dish. Cooking doesn’t get much simpler than this.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. It will be a little quiet on here for a week or so as we enjoy the festivities over the Christmas period, but we would like to thank you all for reading these pages and listening and contributing to the adventures of a very special little boat and her crew.
