We shared a few galley box ideas and articles and asked readers to send us their own solutions and boy did we get some great feedback! Below you’ll see everything from the quick and dirty to custom and elegant. Enjoy! —Eds
Here’s a slick ammo-box style galley box from regular contributor, Paul Stovner.
Reader Skip Johnson is keeps it simple but is nonetheless always prepared. He writes: Not sure it qualifies galley wise, but my food box has traveled with me for a couple of decades now on expedition canoe trips and TX200 adventures.
It holds all the non-clothing stuff I'd prefer not to get wet. Jet boil, backpacker style food, the fan that blows across my face at night to help me sleep, sundry separate plastic containers for personal items and the like.
It fit and tied in nicely in my 14' EasyB canoe. Also served as a nightstand in the tent at night for the fan.
When sailing the box serves as a seat (with my silicone seat pad) keeping my weight to leeward when the wind is light .
How about this gorgeous galley unit from Mark Bratton? He writes: I've been a woodworker for over 50 years. And I always aspire to make things functional and beautiful to look at. My galley box was made of alaskan yellow Cedar. It has a pop-up copper windscreen/splashgaurd. Learning to bend the copper in a small inexpensive bending brake was fun. All the drawers have stops to keep them closed. Leather straps on the side handles secure it either on top of the bench for use or to the forward floor for travel.
Here’s a solid, practical approach from reader Daniel Patterson: I've seen lots of Roger Barnes-style galley boxes, but the combination of the effort involved in construction and the fact that none I've seen are actually watertight led me to a different solution, a modern wanigan of sorts, built around a Pelican Air 1556, which is a pretty good size for an Origo 1500 (or a clone, as I found, old but still in the box)—I think this is the best stove for these type of applications, not least of which because there’s nothing to spill but nothing pressurized and, at least around me, you can get fuel in gallon containers from big box hardware stores. I added a ColorCase lid organizer.
Packed up, it has room—in addition to the stove—for a couple plates, mugs, a frying pan, a pot, kettle, cutting boards, and a Hajka oven, as well as utensils, mitts, a portable sink, pour-over coffee maker, and a few more odds and ends. With this amount of stuff, the top closes pretty tight, so not only is it waterproof, things don't shift around even if you use the wheels and airline-carryon-style handle that the case (quite unnecessarily) has.
To cook in it, the oven (left above) and the pot (right) have to be removed, but the stove stays in place and the box lid serves as a pretty good wind shield (the hinges are stiff, so it would take a lot of wind to blow it closed).
While the case isn't cheap, it seems to work great—if I were making it custom (which I can't do, of course) the only thing I'd change is get rid of the wheels etc on the bottom, which unfortunately protrude into the bottom of the case, making it so that the stove can't slide to one end (which would be easier organization). I looked at the dimensions of every case by Pelican and most of the competitors, and this one seemed to be the best size for the application.
Finally, here’s a video about galley boxes from our friends at Small Craft Tasmania:
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To my mind, a galley box wastes a lot of space and doesn't fit too well anywhere. Or if it fits, it doesn't hold much. I use an old gym bag, which I can stuff into a corner of my cuddy. It holds: jet boil (boils a half liter of water in <2 min), a 2 burner Coleman propane stove, fuel for each, a frying pan, a sauce pan, a coffee drip cone and filters, coffee, freeze dried meals, oatmeal packets, hot chocolate packets, utensils, plates and cups, matches and lighters and probably a few other odds and ends.
I admire these galley boxes, but on my solo camp cruiser there is not much space and I keep things minimal. Cooking gear includes a jetboil that fits in its pot, spare gas canisters, a bowl, spatula, lighter, utensils and an insulated cup. That stuff just goes into a hatch in a side seat. There is a table that can fit across the side seats or stand on folding legs. It has a hole to fit the jetboil, making a stable platform in case of rough water. I can cook decent meals for one with that setup.