T&T: Aft Cabin Ventilation

[veiner at juno.com]

FWIW:

I must be one of those "soft and spoiled," individuals, but I have lived and
cruised in Florida for the last 45 years, so I will share my experience with
you. Before that, I sailed in New England and never needed AC on any vessel.

For nearly 40 years, anchoring out was on a sailboat. If you have a vee berth
forward, and use a windscoop (they are wonderful), you certainly are
comfortable for about 8 months of the year, but can count on very hot, still
nights during the summer months. That also depends on your cruising area. The
lower east coast and Keys can have a lot of air movement, even during summer.
The Gulf coast and panhandle are another story. At least to us, there seemed
to be less air flow in the summer, and the temps are higher than in South
Florida. For all these reasons, we do not cruise or anchor out during the
summer.

Now that we have a classic trawler, I haven't even tried to use a windscoop
because of the logistics problems of keeping it up and in the airstream, with
a cabin and fly bridge blocking air flow.

However, let me make a suggestion, as you too may be "soft and spoiled" and
this tip I pass on from Capt Sterling Kennedy.

Although I have two large capacity AC's on my boat, I also cruise with a small
5,000 BTU AC that uses about 500 watts on high, and less on low. This is for
the times when we are visiting friends or docking in places that only have 20
amp service, and can't run one of the larger AC's on this limited power. It
takes only a few minutes to pop this little AC into the back escape hatch, and
has saved us many hours of running our noisy generator. The benefit of cooling
the aft cabin for sleeping only also reduces the humidity and leads to better
sleep, dryer clothes, fresher smelling cabin, etc.

Everyone with have a different opinion on the subject of AC, and there is no
right answer. Personally, only "mad dogs and Englishmen" sleep in a hot cabin
with high humidity. As long as there is a breeze, its fine without AC.
Unfortunately, during our summers, the breeze seldom lasts through an entire
night. YMMV. Martin Veiner
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