The funny thing about most boat projects is that the initial plan seldom resembles the final outcome. This can be good if your plan evolves in a positive way or all kinds of bad if you lose control of your plan and find yourself with an out of control budget.
For me, the central concept of the VolksCruiser idea is all about simplicity. Simple is good as it’s almost always cheap, simple, and does the job without excess complication.
Complication is seldom your friend where boats are concerned.
Several people have asked if I was going to get rid of propane in favor of an induction system and all seemed surprised when I said I was going with propane because induction requires more power than makes sense to me.
Yeah, I know all about Lithium and new battery chemistries, but my reasoning is based on math and not a Luddite knee jerk reaction. That said, one could do a lot worse than to have an educated Luddite thought process when it comes to high priced gear you may or not need for your boat. Just sayin’.
If you want more information on the subject of modern battery chemistry, induction cooking and propane there’s a really good article over at Sail Magazine you may want to check out. It makes the case way better than I can.
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Our boat is all electric (welcome to trawler life…) and while I’m happy not to have to deal with propane it does horribly limit your cooking options should the generator decide it needs a vacation which it did recently. I’m still ambivalent about propane- on our sailboat I was always nervous about it because the lines were old and the stove no longer fixable because odd parts availability- but having a non electric option other than our small street mounted grill would be great. Good points as always.