The Calor Saga has developed a little, but don’t become euphoric: it remains bad news.
I began to ‘worry’ about this nearly two years ago now and contacted the Royal Yachting Association (waste of space) and the marine leisure press – only one outlet initially interested the story – and eventually decided I had but one choice.
I looked at diesel cookers – problematic in fitting of a flu, and briefly considered old fashioned paraffin and even methylated spirit – sorry, but these on a boat used for long periods of the summer are not suitable.
The back story:
So, a Facebook post from a sailing friend popped up with news from the Boat Safety Scheme people(BSS) in which is an announcement from Calor of a suspension of their original public statement, however, the small 4.5/3.9 kg cylinder will be going, but in a phased manner as cylinders reach life-time limit.
The BSS main statement is copied below.
‘Our advice to boaters is to take advantage of this new Calor position and use the opportunity it affords to, if changes are necessary, find competent expertise in local boats yards or through the Gas Safe Register www.gassaferegister.co.uk/find-an-engineer-or-check-the-register/ and ensure any changes are safe and compliant with boat LPG Codes of Practice and BSS Requirements.’
I just love the bit, ‘ find competent expertise in local boats yards…’ presumably this would be for redesign and changes to locker access and the like.
As said in my original posts, for many wooden boat owners, a complete redesign of cockpit/locker arrangements would be required associated with problems in maintaining locker bottom drainage…
The locker floor has a drain, but when well heeled it ‘floods’!
So, a major cockpit reconstruction. Are Calor going to pay for this?
Is it even possible?
This changes absolutely nothing for so many people in the boating and caravanning world, as the only alternative remains changing to Campingaz. That is a 2.72 kg butane cylinder at twice the price of Calor’s 4.5/3.9 kg butane/propane exchange prices.
Great!