T&T: Aft Cabin Ventilation

[Albin43SDtr]

'Lo Martin and All,


>..... 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.

I just wanted to add to what Martin said; for those who have not 
lived on the Northern Gulf Coast, the humidity is much higher here 
than in lots of other places, even in other parts of Florida. In the 
summer, the "normal" weather pattern, not counting frontal passages 
and hurricanes, is for a sea breeze to come off the Gulf starting in 
mid to late morning and penetrate inland 5-25 miles or so by early 
evening, bringing with it all the hot, moist air off of the Gulf, 
which has been up to 98 degrees that I have experienced. By early 
afternoon, the moist air is further heated, resulting in a row of 
thunderstorms parallel to the Gulf shore from about 2-25 miles 
inland. Then the hot, moist air starts to return in mid to late 
evening towards the Gulf, albeit much more slowly as it does not have 
the energy of the sun (heating the land) to propel it. Early to mid 
evening there often is no wind, but we have a beautiful display of 
Mother Nature's power as the thunderstorms dissipate. By early 
morning, the winds are again calm. The net result is that we 
constantly have high humidity that significantly raises the heat 
index. A temperature that would be comfortable with low humidity can 
become virtually unbearable with high humidity and no wind - hence 
the need for air conditioning. It is not about being a wimp or 
something such, just about maintaining one's health.

For an example of just how much humidity can come off the Gulf of 
Mexico, one only has to look at the devastating floods which eastern 
Texas, Louisiana, parts of Alabama and numerous other places farther 
north and east have had this year.

As for us; well, I "prefer" not to have the generator running to 
provide air conditioning, but I will turn it on immediately if that 
is what makes my wife happy and comfortable to be on the boat. Once, 
on our old sailboat, we both had or came extremely close to having 
sun/heat stroke/sickness. My wife was much more affected by the heat 
that time than I, so her tolerance to high heat indexes is much less 
than mine. That single event drastically changed how well we tolerate 
high temperatures - we don't. In the heat of summer, we hibernate in 
the house.  The ability to be in an air conditioned environment when 
needed was why we sold the sailboat and bought the Celestial.

My advise - avoid sun/heat stroke/sickness at any cost! Also, be 
aware of the symptoms and steps to take to mitigate the situation.

Declarations: I am neither a weather forecaster nor physician, just, 
hopefully, a good observer.


Take care and be safe.

Wayne
Celestial
Albin43 Sundeck
Panama City, FL area