The sails are off and packed away, mast comes down Friday and we will be hauled for the season (our club rules are all boats out by a set deadline in October, this year it is the 16th).
There were several things on our check list that this boat had, one in particular was the roomy aft cabin. This summer was a hot and sometimes humid one, the cabin temp was in the 90's most days when we were down there so I am sad to say we never stayed on the boat even once this summer. One of my winter projects is to try and improve the ventilation and cooling. Other than the "will not happen suggestions" like moving to a different port city, I am open to suggestions. We are working with a few limitations, the small opening ports in the head and aft cabin don't provide much airflow and must be closed when it rains because of the slope of the cabin sides. The single forward hatch is smallish, also not much airflow but I was planning on adding either a passive or solar vent to the hatch. On our boat that hatch is also the only natural light in the forward area of the cabin. I see on other 27-3's there are fixed portlights in the hull, ours is not equipped with those but I'm willing to give up some light in exchange for air movement. I could add a louver to one of the main hatchboards as well, that would give us air coming in if the forward hatch vent was set to exhaust. The companionway is narrow and steep so adding a home window AC unit there like some have done will not work due to size restrictions. I even looked at marine AC, some of the units are pretty small and might fit. The problem there is the 110v electric panel is not expandable to add a breaker for the AC. The panel would have to be replaced or another panel added. Not a show stopper but not ideal either. It would be great if whatever the setup ends up being would allow some airflow when it rains too.
Any thoughts? Suggestions (within reason)?
There were several things on our check list that this boat had, one in particular was the roomy aft cabin. This summer was a hot and sometimes humid one, the cabin temp was in the 90's most days when we were down there so I am sad to say we never stayed on the boat even once this summer. One of my winter projects is to try and improve the ventilation and cooling. Other than the "will not happen suggestions" like moving to a different port city, I am open to suggestions. We are working with a few limitations, the small opening ports in the head and aft cabin don't provide much airflow and must be closed when it rains because of the slope of the cabin sides. The single forward hatch is smallish, also not much airflow but I was planning on adding either a passive or solar vent to the hatch. On our boat that hatch is also the only natural light in the forward area of the cabin. I see on other 27-3's there are fixed portlights in the hull, ours is not equipped with those but I'm willing to give up some light in exchange for air movement. I could add a louver to one of the main hatchboards as well, that would give us air coming in if the forward hatch vent was set to exhaust. The companionway is narrow and steep so adding a home window AC unit there like some have done will not work due to size restrictions. I even looked at marine AC, some of the units are pretty small and might fit. The problem there is the 110v electric panel is not expandable to add a breaker for the AC. The panel would have to be replaced or another panel added. Not a show stopper but not ideal either. It would be great if whatever the setup ends up being would allow some airflow when it rains too.
Any thoughts? Suggestions (within reason)?