A Chilly Reception

New freezers give food spoilage the cold shoulder.

The good news for long distance cruisers who, unlike the fabled Don Street, like to cruise with a well-stocked freezer, is that the latest generation of freezers have lower start-up and run loads, thus making them more suitable to cruisers who prefer to depend on inverters or battery power–much of it supplied from solar panels or wind generators–for most of their electrical needs.

“The efficiency of solar panels is really increasing,” says Bruce Nelson of Glacier Bay. “With that and better house batteries and battery management systems, many boats can handle the lower start up and run loads of the Masterflux DC compressors of our current freezers.” Glacier Bay has sold the design for its efficient freezer compressors to Tacumseh’s North American Compressor Group while it gears up for its next generation of Micro Hybrid Plate systems, which blur the line between small, hermetically sealed DC constant-cycle units and larger, higher power holding plate systems. Glacier Bay says its Masterflux compressors give seven times more cooling capacity for the same unit weight as older-style compressors. “We think the market will be driven by demand for lighter-weight units and that’s a prime focus. ...

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