Air Conditioning with Full Enclosure

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dustoff
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Sailboat: MacGregor 26M
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Air Conditioning with Full Enclosure

Post by dustoff »

I've had the full enclosure for some years, but haven't used it often. My wife finds it claustrophobic to sleep down below, so I the normal companionway AC techniques weren't really effective. So we've lived without AC for the most part over the last 8 years. On our 4th of July sailing trip on the Chesapeake I came up with a way to use AC to cool the cockpit and cabin to try to make the wife happy. It needs some refinement, but w/ a 5k BTU unit, it adequately cooled the entire volume in the evenings.


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Herschel
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Re: Air Conditioning with Full Enclosure

Post by Herschel »

Brilliant. Show us how you did it. 8)
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Jimmyt
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Re: Air Conditioning with Full Enclosure

Post by Jimmyt »

Nice! Now all I need is a full enclosure... :?

Good, simple solution to keeping the Admiral happy.
Jimmyt
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2013 26M, Etec 60, roller Genoa, roller main
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dustoff
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Sailboat: MacGregor 26M
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Re: Air Conditioning with Full Enclosure

Post by dustoff »

It was pretty simple. I had some high density foam that I made into resting feet for the front and back of the AC unit that raised it to the top of the dodger and created a barrier for the bottom with the AC unit resting on the opened companionway sliding hatch. I then created a fabric hood from sailcloth (my old blown Genoa sail). This was really just a flat piece of sailcloth with a cutout on three sides that was the size of the AC unit frontal area. I left enough material length on the hood so I could clip it to the supporting bars on the dodger and cover up the area I opened up by folding the windscreen on the dodger up. I used some gorilla tape to adhere the sailcloth to the AC unit on three sides. I already had shore power and an AC outlet on the boat, so I just plugged it in and voila. I used some towels to cover up the openings in the enclosure for the stern lines and covered up the opening under the stern seat. (but left a little bit of an opening down there to prevent fuel vapors from collecting). One battery operated fan to blow cool air back into the cabin and surprise, it worked great on a hot summer night in a protected marina.
The unit blocks the view forward pretty dramatically, so it's not something you could keep there while sailing, but not bad to rig up for the night.
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Russ
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Re: Air Conditioning with Full Enclosure

Post by Russ »

It looks like a great mod. And the cockpit cooling is a plus. You should document this in the mods section. Worthy of consideration of other Mac owners.
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OverEasy
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Re: Air Conditioning with Full Enclosure

Post by OverEasy »

That is a nice solution!

Cooling down the enclosed cockpit area is also a great benefit as well.
Most AC mods only address the interior cabin ignoring the aspect of the cockpit.

Given that most of the time I would expect to run AC would be via shore power the loss of fwd visibility really isn’t an issue.
I anticipate that the unit is small enough and light enough that storing it below really isn’t much of an issue either.

Nice! :) :)

8) 8)
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