Special purpose low-power air conditioning - metal involved!

I would measure the water temperature at various depths. I think you will find the water much cooler a few feet down. But that will depend on where you are. I can remember swimming in the Hood Canal when I lived in the Pacific NW, In August it was okay as long as you kept swimming. But if you stopped and let you legs down ,the water was downright cold.

Dan

A dry wind blows o'er my moat. Doan breathe it lest you bloat.

-- The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw

If you are anchored out you ought to be o.k without cooling. Away from home we always sleep in the cockpit and surprisingly often use a light blanket. In a Marina is another story altogether and I used a smallish window air-conditioner blowing down the forward hatch.

But a old radiator core, a submersible bilge pump, some rubber hose and a fan out to be easy to scrounge. You could probably rig something up in the garage to test the idea.

(after all, all that water has to be good for something ;-)

Honda wasn't the only maker, I bought a beat-up 500W Kohler Powerplay 500

When an ice storm dropped a tree on my roof and cut off electricity for a week that genny let me fix the dozen holes and cracked rafter. It was enough to power a saber saw and the Makita panel saw battery charger, and light enough to carry up there.

jsw

Well, the Kohler just might outlive the Chiwanese engine/genny, Jim. Just maybe.

Enough power is enough. Why ask for more?

-- The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw

If I wanted to cool a anchored sail boat I would consider adapting the heating technology shown at the following web site to cooling. See

It's an interesting idea - same as was used used by the ancient Greeks.

But it would be hard to retro-fit to an existing sailboat.

On this boat the cabin floor, the part that is not actually hull is only about 3 feet by 7. There is a removable plywood bilge plate (sole) that is about 2 feet by 5 feet. The rest of the interior is seats, berths, and a few cabinets. Not a lot of accessible floor space.

Building that into the hull would be a whopping big mistake! As thin as fiberglass hulls are you would spend more energy trying to hear or cool the lake, or entire ocean!

I have my eye on a 1979 Gitana 43' Staysail Schooner - flush decked (oh baby!) that I can just almost afford. She needs some cosmetic work but it supposed to be seaworthy. We will find out next weekend.

In this size boat there is a lot more sole (floor) and such a trick might be possible if one has the power budget to drive it...

The problem isn't distributing the cold, it's producing the cold in the first place.

In most deep bodies of water, that's called "a hose to the anchor." If you park your boat in puddles that are not cold on the bottom, it won't help you, but otherwise it could. Alternatively, you could use the more traditional boat cooling method of 100 pounds of ice and 500 pounds of beer, rather than cooling the air...

Of course, if you are foolish enough to lay out "radiant cooling" rather than run it through an air handler with a condensate drain, the dank will make life unpleasant very fast. If you use an air handler, air conditioning in deep fresh water becomes a simple matter of pump and fan loads as you pull the

See, that's what I like about this group. There is always someone who has a good grasp of the technology and can offer a practical solution to almost any problem!

:)

Richard

email.me...

How about and absorption refigeration processs.