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I'm a jack of all trades with deep expertise in infrastructure, cloud, networking, and devsecops. In my spare time I also like to play around with self-hosting, embedded devices, camping, permaculture, sailing, and scouting
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I purchased a 1988 Catalina Capri 22 Sailboat in the summer of 2024... This series goes over what I did to the boat, and why.
Overall, the boat is in pretty good shape, or so it seems to me. Reminder: I'm very new to boat ownership - This is my first! After giving it a thorough once over, I've worked out the following... Airflow Unfortunately, the docks at the lake do not h...
Don't bother!
With Typescript and CDK
Lets think about why we allow streaming updates to production, and what might be some other options
Overall, the boat is in pretty good shape, or so it seems to me. Reminder: I'm very new to boat ownership - This is my first! After giving it a thorough once over, I've worked out the following... Airflow Unfortunately, the docks at the lake do not h...
DampRid is great stuff for dealing with excess humidity. Lots of boaters (and hunters, and countless other folks) use it to keep less frequently used spaces fresh and free of mold and mildew. The only real downside is that it's expensive. A 3 pack of bags is $20, and they're not that big either. If you want to go large, the 4lb bucket is around $32 on Amazon as of this writing... So it got me wondering, what is this stuff?
The Material Safety Data Sheet for DampRid has the answer! The miracle crystals are primarily... Calcium Chloride... Basically, de-icing salt. The same de-icing salt that you can buy at big box stores in the winter for $1/lb or less.
I'm aware that I don't need to go big or go home. After all, the 4 lb bucket is good for 1,000 square feet, according to the manufacturer. Though I argue that they don't work quite that well due to air flow and all that, a couple of the smaller ones would probably work fine for a simple sailboat. So why look at rolling your own? Well, I like the idea of a larger reservoir. When I used the commercial ones, they would fill up quickly and needed to be checked every week or two. Although I like to think I will get to the boat frequently, I know that reality is often different. Plus, I like to tinker. So here's what I came up with...
Or SUMDRA, for short. Really rolls of the tongue, right? 😅 It's simply a 5 gallon bucket with a mesh sieve on top to hold the ice melt. This lets the user put in as much ice melt as they want, and have a large reservoir to catch all the moisture.
For this build, I used a Home Depot bucket (about $5) and a 600 micron plastic mesh ($27!!!) designed for 5 gallon bucket. Yes, the mesh was expensive. I couldn't find anything plastic that had fine enough holes for the small salt crystals. Next time, I might try cheese cloth or similar in a regular plastic colander, but for now, this is it. Just remember, these crystals are highly corrosive, so make sure whatever you get is plastic. I wouldn't even trust stainless in this situation.
As for the salt itself, the key is to look for one that is mostly Calcium Chloride. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. However, right now we're in the middle of a heat wave and most stores don't stock ice melt in the summer. You should have seen the look on the guy's face when I asked...
Thankfully, in many cases, you can order it and have it shipped to the store for free. Use their websites to check availability and ingredients, but call ahead to confirm availability if they say there are some in stock. I know it may come as a surprise, but the internet lies, and availability is often mis-reported. I settled on Snow Joe 20 lb. 94% Pure Calcium Chloride Ice Melt Pellets. Be sure to read the details! One of the larger bags from the same manufacturer had a very similar label, but was mostly Sodium Chloride.
So, how does it work? I have no idea! It's the middle of summer, and I'm waiting on my ice melt to get delivered. 😆 It should be in next week. I plan on throwing it in the bucket and moving everything to the boat after that. So stay tuned for updates!