A/C on a 1981 30' Hunter

[duncanew]

Can you describe your solutions to getting air conditioning on a Cherubini Hunter 30'?

If you have a built in unit, where did you place it? Where did you run the vents? What size is it? What make and are you satisified?

If you are using a window unit, what size is it? Where and how didi you mount it?

My wife and I want some form of a/c so we can sleep in the boat while at our yacht club, but do not want to break the bank. I am thinking about mounting a window unit in the forward hatch but worry about lifting it on and off the boat.

 

[Ed Schenck]

What breaks the bank? Different for everyone. A built-in unit, probably 16k, will run you at least $1500. My 12K Mermaid was $1000. ten years ago. A standard cardboard box makes a good template for finding a place to install. I ran no ducts. I put it in a cabinet and it blows into the salon. Our Cherubini interiors are small enough that a couple of fans can circulate the cool air and you don't lose the storage space.

I have seen window units on top deflected into a hatch. And I have seen them mounted in a hatchboard sitting on the bridgedeck. The best is a friend's H28.5 where he mounted it inside by cutting through the aft cabin bulkhead. The back end(outside end) of the unit is in his starboard locker. It is only 5k but enough for Ohio. Window units with enough btu's for Florida are going to be bulky and heavy.

 

[Redbeard33]

heres a picture of my homegrown solution. The A/C unit sits in the "corridor" between the drop boards and rear of the cabin trunk. The 33' has a teak trim piece that prevents condensate from leaking in. The unit is placed down and the blue piece of plywood pictured is slid down over. A planned upgrade is adding some brass handles to make it a bit easier to slide in and out. The A/C Unit was only $100 brand new 8 years ago and is not very powerful (barely cooled a 12'x12' bedroom) but still cools the boat quite well due to the relatively low air volume of the cabin.

 

[MLampner]

On my 30 I use a window unit mounted in the bulkhead at the back of the quarter berth. When in use I open the lazerate to allow it to vent the heat it collects. Condensate runs to the bilge. I bought a 4000 btu unit. On very hot nights like last Monday it takes a long time to cool the cabin down if I have placed fans and have the door open into the v berth. As I was out alone I closed that and manged to get the cabin down to 71 after a 102 degree day. It took about 5 hours to get there and the outside temp had dropped to 88 at that point. Even though it took a long time to cool the cabin it was fairly quickly more comfortable below decks as it sucked the humidity out of the air. Cost was $100 at Sears. In hindsight I should have bought a bigger unit.

It is also critical that you make sure all joints in the interior to the engine bay are sealed well or you can blow diesel fumes back into the cabin and that doesn't make for a great night.

 

[Redbeard33]

does anybody know the wattage calculation-equation to figure out if one of those little super quiet generators could power the A/C at anchor? The cord tag Amperage converts to wattage if I remember right.

 

[Ed Schenck]

My Honda 2000 will run my 12K Mermaid. I have seen posts where people claim they can run their 16K units with the Honda. But to do that you need a "start capacitor" to get over the hump at startup. My unit draws about 6 amps but takes almost 18 at startup when the pump and compressor both kick in.

 

[MLampner]

The formula iris amps times volts equal watts. The formula is sometimes called the West Virginia formula W=va. A little algebra will let you compute any one of the values if you know the other two. Ed's point is also a concern there is a spike at start. Mos generators are designed to provide some capacity for the spike. So a Sony rated at 2000 watts will produce about 16 amps. So if your machine draws 15 amps it's close with the starting spike. If it draws 10 amps you'd be fine.