I’m considering adding a cooling plate to the icebox on my 26 Ultra, but want to be sure the insulation is adequate first. Anyone with a 26 Ultra manage to find a way to get the counter top off of the port side nav/icebox? I’ve read about drilling holes and using expanding foam. If I can, I’d rather get access and add some foam sheet to the outside of the box. If possible.
Jeff
Nonsuch 26 Ultra - Jade
Boothbay Harbor, Maine
Jeff,
I can only guess, because I haven’t tried to dismantle mine. Based just on inspection of mine, my only guess is that there might be fasteners hidden underneath the formica laminate over the top. And, mine has a fiddle around it. If yours does, I don’t know if its installation is another problem. It could be hiding fasteners underneath, too.
Also, I’m not sure if removing them would eliminate the difficulties, even if true, because the next concern depends on the molding that forms the ice box.
I would guess that the icebox itself is a fiberglass molding that’s attached to the countertop bottom, likely with a small amount of insulation glued on. If so, you’d have to lift all that out together.
On my boat, there’s a small hole, just inside the engine compartment, at the bottom of the vertical piece that forms one of the walls of that compartment. If there’s some inconspicuously located hole like that on yours, or some place you’re willing to drill one, it might be worth inserting an endoscopic wall inspection camera into it to see what information that provides.
Bottom line. It’s possible that there’s a way to get it apart without having to do a lot of cosmetic repairs after reassembling. If so, I’d be interested in hearing about it, too.
I’m not optimistic, though. Hinterhoeller was pretty good about accessibility of places where the need for access was anticipated. But, for areas that weren’t planned for, I think they were put together to stay that way.
– Bob
Thanks Bob.
It probably won’t happen until the spring, but if I get anywhere with this I’ll take photos and share. Mine also has the fiddle.
My 30U icebox has a pattern of holes, maybe a dozen total, that were obviously used by a previous owner to inject foam. I also found an article about the procedure among the ship’s papers with several sections highlighted in yellow.
It was always a very efficient icebox and now since I added refrigeration it draws only around 15-20 Ah/day which is easily recovered by my solar panels.
Cost/benefit wise I’m thinking the foam injection is worth another look.
Jeff,
I’ve done the injection in my previous Nonsuch, and can post the how-to advice that’s available on doing that job if anyone’s interested.
However, whichever way you go, getting in there first with an endoscopic inspection camera is a good first step. No matter what you do, it’d help to know in advance what you’ll be dealing with.
I’d compare injection vs. disassembly and foam sheets to doing minor vs. major surgery. Having had some experience with both, I prefer minor surgery by a long shot.
So I may be projecting my own feelings onto your boat when I agree with Paul. But there you are.
– Bob
More like laparoscopic surgery! 
Looking closer, I agree that dismantling the countertop to get at the icebox would be an experiment I’d prefer to avoid.
I also noticed that on the bulkhead wall on the aft side of the icebox (in the port cockpit locker) there are 5/16 “ holes drilled without pattern that are now sealed with thickened epoxy. Could this be from a previous owner injecting foam? I see this on just the aft wall, nothing on the front or sides. The uploaded picture is cluttered, but scattered around behind the electrical stuff the holes are visible. ?
Jeff,
It’s hard to tell. Knowing how hard it is to pretzel oneself to reach the aft wall of the icebox from the inside, I can see why someone would want to go in that way. So, it’s possible. But, I’ve got a few doubts/concerns.
By any chance, have you seen the write-up on the injection process on pp. 32-33 of the INA’s New Nonsuch Owners’ Quick Guide? This figure from it shows the approach they suggest:
The picture I’ve attached is a cross-section, so the curved part in the lower right hand corresponds to the hull of the boat. It’s essentially a cutaway view from the perspective of facing aft, while your picture is looking at the same thing from the perspective of someone facing forward. This picture shows injections into the inner and outer sides of the icebox, but not the forward and aft sides.
A couple reasons why I’m not sure what you’re seeing are filled foam injection sites. One, there’s no real reason to fill them with epoxy because the foam expanding out of them is enough to seal them. Two, injecting foam from that direction only wouldn’t likely be sufficient to properly distribute the foam around all four walls and the bottom of the icebox. It’d be very hard to get the foam to expand forward far enough, much less wrap around the front.
And, it’d be impossible to tell whether you’d done it right. The way you tell if you’ve injected enough foam is that you work your way sequentially from bottom to top. You inject at each point, wait for expansion to take place, and inject again if needed, until you see foam flowing out of holes at or above the current level. Then you move up. Without holes on each side, there’s no way to tell if enough foam has gone in – and no pressure release if too much has. Excess expanding foam can warp fiberglass liners, crack wood partitions, squeeze out through cracks and make ugly messes.
As the diagram shows, there’s also actually more empty space to insulate on the hull side. The only way to effectively reach that part to inject foam is through the side of the icebox as shown in the diagram[1].
Another thing that make me wonder is that your picture shows a large, very nicely grommeted, hole in the panel with two large red power cables running into it. Those cables look fairly new. That makes it unlikely they installed before insulation was injected, but installing them after would have been very difficult if the compartment was filled with foam.
The good news is that this large hole would make it really easy to snake in an inspection camera.
– Bob
Getting there by drilling through the hull has obvious drawbacks 
. ↩︎
Bob,
Thanks for the time to write this. I had not seen that diagram, but that approach makes sense. I also must admit that I have an aversion to using expanding foam, stemming from home projects and impatience. In this case, it does look like the best practical solution. Time to get that inspection camera.
I definitely understand that. Everything I’ve done with it at home has ended up messy, mainly because of trying to use it in free-form situations like filling a wall gap around a pipe. Can’t aim it and hope to contain it.
Patience is key to doing it neat and tidy on this project. If you don’t wait for expansion, in particular, it’s easy to put in too much foam and even the pre-drilled holes aren’t enough to relieve the pressure.
I learned that the hard way. I’m more of an instant gratification guy than a patience paragon.
When I did the job, I didn’t wait long enough to allow for expansion, so I was effectively adding foam through the next hole up without realizing that the foam from below was rising and about to spout out of it. The resulting excess foam found its way through cracks between the fiberglass section that forms the icebox area and the storage compartment with sliding covers above it. This resulted in partially encasing a set of tumblers and wine glasses in the foam that oozed through.
– Bob
Using the expanding foam seems like a good idea. The next questions are how many cans would be required, and would low expansion foam be the best type to use? Would bracing inside the fridge be required to prevent the expanding foam from forcing the walls inward as expansion progresses? I think I see a mockup being required to answer these questions.
Blake
N33, Procyon
Vancouver BC
Based on my experience, I’d say that bracing inside the fridge would be a reasonable precaution.
However, it’d still be important to go slowly and give time to see how much the injected foam has expanded before adding more. After all, if pressure’s created from excessive foam with not enough room to expand, that pressure still has to go somewhere.
Frankly, it’s been too long, so I don’t remember how many cans I used. I don’t think it’d help you that much anyway. What went for my N26 might not say anything about what works for your N33. (Or, for that matter, even for someone else’s N26. No guarantees that everyone’s got the same amount of space to fill.)
A can probably has information about the cubic volume of foam it produces, so it might be possible to evaluate your installation and make a rough guess. Since the game is go slow and wait anyway, you could also just buy a can or so at a time as needed if you’re willing to spread the job out .
– Bob
I mentioned that I found an article about this subject on Sandpiper that explained the pattern of holes in the icebox and its efficiency. I’m not at the boat now but will try to find it. It obviously was good advice.
IIRC it was from an old Update but I could be mistaken.
