Propane

Our stove is powered by propane. We have 3 tanks, (10 lbs each) in a deck box just behind the main mast. Years ago when I first purchased Snow Goose, it had a single propane tank which sat on the deck at the rear of the boat. I figured that having the propane tank in a dedicated storage location would be safer than leaving it sit back by the cockpit. So, one of the first projects that I built for the boat was a deck box to store propane in. I wanted to upgrade from 20 lbs of capacity to 30 lbs of propane and I needed something to step on when I handled the main sail. When the project was finished, I had a nice storage box for 3 - 10 lb tanks (a 50% increase) and a place to stand on. The down side of the new propane locker was that it blocked part of the view forward from the cockpit. This is a good illustration of the positives and negatives that can result from making upgrades to your boat. In this case, good storage and better accessibility to the main sail outweighed the small lose of forward visibility. Everything on a boat is a tradeoff in one way or another.