Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

After watching your YT demo, it looks like these are even worse than the old pump up alcohol stoves. The old ones at least contained the burning "preheat" pool with the the whole cooker bottom being sealed. They could be started on an angle. Someone said the tank is vented too which sounds like a drip source as well. At this point, I think I would go for propane over either of them.

Yes, I agree, Len. As I said in the vid, I am not impressed: It is also far too slow to bring anything much to the boil. Oh well!

Well, it turns out I may have maligned that little stove. On my second test, it performed much better, bringing about 750ml water to boil in about 8 mins. I still haven't performed testing with the scientific rigour Arne suggests, but will do when I get a chance to breathe.

I think the first test ran poorly because I didn't give it enough time for the wick that transports the fuel from tank to burner to get saturated properly.

The issues remain in terms of the stove being suitable for boat use, but I do feel improvements could be made. The vent (which is obviously necessary) in the tank lid could be extended upwards by drilling it out and soldering a piece of copper pipe or somesuch in it. The biggest issue, as I see it, is the prewarm tray, which is too shallow for safe use on a boat. This could be adapted or refabricated to improve it.

I find now as I get older there in not only an increasing difference between UK English and USA English but also between youth UK English and old man English. So if we started up glossaries we would never know where to stop. 

Of course of particular interest to all of us here is to explain the yachting and sailing terms we use to to those innocents who come and sail with us for the first time ! Ie why do we call those rope ‘sheets’ when it is perfectly obvious to the novice that those big white things must be the sheets! 

On my current boat which is principally an open day boat with tent for occasional nights I use the single burner Origo stove which is fine for making a breakfast coffee using the  old fashioned aluminium espresso pot. It is safe, easy and reliable. It is however no solution to making a meal or baking bread.

On a previous boat we inherited a Taylor paraffin stove with two top burners and an oven. As a non gas cooker it was a brilliant performer and was plenty hot enough to tackle all tasks. It was however quite an exciting challenge to light successfully without clouds of dirty black smoke and dirt which followed an unsuccessful ignition.

We found in the end that the best solution was to have handy a small gas paint burner with disposable canister. Use this instead of the spirit in the dish, get the burner really hot and turn on the paraffin.

in subsequent years on other boats we have used the standard gas with the normal precautions of self draining lockers and cut off valves near the stove. Never had any accidents.

I have to say however I loved and miss the comforting roar of the Taylor on those cold and invariably wet days and nights when we used to sail on the S.Coast of England CI’s and N France

Anonymous wrote:

After watching your YT demo, it looks like these are even worse than the old pump up alcohol stoves. The old ones at least contained the burning "preheat" pool with the the whole cooker bottom being sealed. They could be started on an angle. Someone said the tank is vented too which sounds like a drip source as well. At this point, I think I would go for propane over either of them.

Yes, I agree, Len. As I said in the vid, I am not impressed: It is also far too slow to bring anything much to the boil. Oh well!

Tony, I hope you can make this little test with your Mamba cooker as well. It will probably be slower than the Origo, but my guess is that the fuel consumtion will come out quite low.
Many of us are curious about those German alcohol stoves.

Cheers, Arne

I'll see what I can do, Arne. :)