One of the reasons that I personally love living on a boat and being location independent in my work is that we can head south for the winter to avoid the cold and then we can sail north in the summers to avoid the heat.

Well, it doesn’t always work out that way and it can certainly get cold on a boat. We tend to linger north a bit and can find some cold days when traveling south and then even when we reach Florida. We tend to winter in St. Augustine where it can and often does get into the 30s F (near 0c).

Many boats have heat. Most modern marine air conditioners will go in reverse and work as a heater if you have the electricity for it, some boats will have a diesel heater that burns diesel much like an oil furnace in a land based house, and wall mounted propane, diesel, kerosene, and wood stoves are common on many boats.

We have none of those.

The first time we started to freeze was when we were on the hard in the yard at Cape Charles VA well into December. The solution then was to pick up some electric space heaters. We had some extension cords run and that was enough to keep the edge off.

When we left the yard we were disconnected without AC power once again so they were stowed and we used the oven to bake cookies to take the edge off on colder nights.

But about half way down the ICW in mid December that year we found ourselves with sub freezing temperatures and baking cookies was not going to cut it. We were VERY cold.

It was then that we met a lady on the free dock in Chesapeake VA who told us what we needed.

A small portable Kerosene heater.

And we’ve been using it ever since with great success and comfort.

When tied to the dock, particularly in St. Augustine we have tried to use the electric heaters on several occasions but we’ve found that they are slow to heat the boat and they overload our ancient electrical system.

Ironically the electric heaters pose a greater fire threat on our boat than does the kerosene heater with actual fire in it.

And best of all the kerosene space heater works well when we are at anchor.

Another solution I strongly considered was installing a small Woodstove but decided against it since I’m still not sure if after the boys move off if I’m going to save up for a Catamaran or if I’m going to stay on the boat forever. If I decide to stay forever I may install a woodstove.