T&T: Engine Air Intake (routing)

[Mark Andrew]

I need some insight...

We will be routing our engine air intake through the extremely large
lazarette abaft the engine room (the rear lazarette is about 4 ft tall, and
15 feet long and as wide as the boat...it's a big storage cavity, basically)

Here's the question we're debating...we're fresh water Great Lakes sailors
prepping this steel trawler for blue water cruising:

At the far aft end of the lazarette we plan to put, up high, a large cowl
vent for the engine/lazarette air.  The question is: Would it be better to
connect the cowl vent directly to the engine intake as it goes through the
engineroom/lazarette bulkhead?  Or would it be sufficient to let the
lazarette itself be the channel, and have no need to directly connect the
cowl with the engine inake, basically the engine would intake lazarette air.

One argument is that the fresh air drawn through the lazaretto would cause
the contents stored in the lazaretto to never dry....if it's foggy, or
raining...damp air would be drawn through the lazarette.  The lazarette is
not intended to be hermetically sealed anyway, but the argument is that
drawing a great deal of air through the lazarette would be asking for
trouble.

The other argument is that the additional air flow will keep the lazarette
air 'fresh' and ambient with the outside conditions, maybe even help keep
the contents of the lazarette dry.

What do you salt-water cruisers think about this?

Mark
"Black River", 56' steel circa 1955
Holland, MI