How to add some winter warmth to your trailer boat

Staying warm on the water doesn’t have to be that expensive. The cheapest way is to throw on more layers of clothing, but bulk restricts movement, so in some ways dressing lighter is better.

Oh, and never use a gas or fuel stove for heating. These things generate dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide that could, under surprisingly simple conditions, be fatal.

So what other options are there to add some seasonal warmth to a trailer boat? We look at everything from the cheapest to the most expensive. Somewhere in between could be the ideal solution for your boat.

Here are our top five tips on staying warm on the water, and a bit of advice on what to avoid.

The COVID-19 pandemic means it’s going to be a very slow snow season, which in turn means outdoor clothing retailers are going to have a lot of gear they need to move.

That’s where you swoop in. And no, we’re not talking those fancy ski gloves with all the fingers and so on. Instead, we’re talking mittens.

Mittens made for mountaineers, snowboarders and cross-country skiers are waterproof and, more importantly, durable. You can find a good pair made from GoreTex, the raincoat material that keeps rain and water out but remains breathable.

Look for a pair that has a removable inner liner – if the inside of the glove gets wet you can swap them out for a warm pair of liners that have been stuffed in your pocket – and a handy wrist lanyard so that if you need to throw one off in a hurry to reel in a fish, you’re not going to lose it over the side.

Disposable hand warmers are cheap and easy to use. Normally, you just have to break an inner seal and the heat-producing chemical reaction gets straight to work.

A decent brand will last up to 10 hours.

There are reusable heat packs available if the idea of adding to landfill with the single-use units makes you uneasy.

You reactivate these by boiling them until the gel inside them goes clear. To re-activate, a metal clocker inside the packet sparks the chemical reaction that releases the warmth.

These tend to have a much more limited lifespan than the disposable units – think an hour at best – and can be uncomfortably warm to handle.

Nothing warms the soul like a hot pie. Some would probably argue a 12-volt pie warmer should be a mandatory accessory fitted to every boat launching down south between Easter and grand final day.

Portable 12-volt stoves range from small two-pie enclosed ovens right up to the shrunken-down versions of the stainless steel units you’d be familiar with at the local footy ground.

These will easily heat up to around 120 degrees but be warned, the electrical load they draw, especially when first switched on, will sap a battery faster than a bite of a cold pie can wipe the smile off a first mate’s face.

If you go down this path, ensure you have the spare battery capacity and recharging capability to make it work.

Do it right, though, and a hot pie can be the perfect morale booster for everyone onboard.

Go down to any shop selling chainsaws and guaranteed somewhere in among the displays of brush cutters, hedge trimmers and ride-on mowers, there will be a stand selling heated jackets and vests.

These use a rechargeable battery to run a system very similar to the strip-heaters that clear the condensation from your car’s rear window. However, instead of warming glass, the circuit is warming human blubber.

On a low setting – yep, just like an electric blanket, you can tune the heat to just the way you like it – you can expect the jacket or vestto provide about 10 hours of warmth before the 12-volt system needs a recharge. Flick it to the high setting, and the battery will drain in as little as three hours.

Some of the more clever systems even come with a USB plug so you can recharge a phone on the fly.

An important point to note is that these systems really only heat your torso, as the heater elements don’t usually extend into the arms of the jacket.

Cold weather is tolerable as long as you can hunker down out of it behind some sort of protection, such as a cuddy cab.

Protection from wind chill and rain is important, especially with the climatic equivalent of leaving the fridge door open – a full-on southerly dragging air straight up from Antarctica.

But the best way to provide all-weather protection is to enclose the wheelhouse.

How you do this depends on the budget. The cheapest and easiest is to invest in a bimini and a good set of clears that enclose three sides of the cuddy.

These are usually clear plastic zip-in panels, so come summer you just unzip and remove them to bring back the welcome airflow.

Browse the websites of the southern Australia-based boat brands – the likes of leisure boat maker Whittley, lifestyle and fishing specialists Haines Hunter and Southern Formula, Bar Crusher and so on – and they all offer hard-topped versions of their boats that provide extreme weather protection in spades.

And while you may grumble at the cost of buying a new boat just to get the extra weather protection, remember that while other people are staring wistfully out the window because the forecast says cool and showers, you are out there living the good life.

That in itself will make the extra investment worth it

There are a number of 12-volt blower heaters on the market that you can fit in your boat to warm up.

However, these things can be battery killers and are rather inefficient at warming up large spaces. Part of the reason is the high number of amps they need to draw to produce heat in sufficient quantities, so in the main, they are built to draw a lower amperage. That, in turn, means less heat.

Unless you feel like investing heavily in adding more battery grunt, which comes with its own complications such as space and weight, the best advice here is to look for another solution.