What’s better than having a sundowner after a lively sail? Well, we can’t think of anything. But, for a good sundowner, a sailor needs ice! Should we invest in an expensive icemaker and find space to install it, or could we buy one of the inexpensive icemakers and would that work? After all, we really don’t have space for a big box type icemaker, so smaller is better. I think I found a good and icemaker that fits the bill and as a bonus it’s inexpensive!
The brand is Costway and it sells on Amazon for around $105. At a glance, it looks like one of those standard countertop icemakers, and it is but it works really well. It makes ice quickly and is completely automatic. The only drawback to all these inexpensive icemakers is that they make what I call “wet ice”. The ice isn’t as cold as a more expensive model might make, but it is cold enough. To make the ice colder when we make ice during the day we just fill a baggie as the machine finishes cycling and drop it in our freezer to get it colder. If we’re low on ice and we’re running the icemaker to quickly get ice into our glasses we have found that the ice is cold enough to stand up to alcoholic beverages well. It is nice, if you have a freezer aboard, to chill the ice as cold as you can get it, though.
The page on Amazon states that it will make 26 pounds of ice per day, but that would be if you stayed up all night and day tending to the machine. The only real tending it needs is that when the basket for the ice fills it 
turns off until you empty it. Not a big deal because it makes enough ice for two to four drinks in one basket. We always make the largest cubes, so it probably takes about 20 minutes to fill the basket. Not too bad.
All and all we really like this little icemaker. It received 4.5 out of 5 stars in Amazon, and that’s for good cause. It fared better than any of the others that we looked at. We’re pleased with this little gem and would recommend it to anyone that is looking for an icemaker.