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| Selections from "Sail Away" | ||
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Part 3 - Outfitting
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| Below Deck Following are some hints for safety and comfort for living in the cabin -- offshore and at anchor. A proper Dorade vent can bring a surprising amount of air below. We have never had a drop of  water enter even in heavy weather. Living Aboard Ventilation Ventilation is often overlooked in boats built for northern waters. But some provision must be made to get air down below, especially for sailing in the tropics. Most boats are more comfortable at anchor since there are fewer obstructions to block the wind. The boat will usually face the breeze and tend to catch it with open hatches. Many cruisers use a WindScoop™ in a main hatch to get even more air in but the winds in the Caribbean and Bahamas are often too strong for them. We have found we don't need one because we have a reversing hatch lid which acts like a scoop, and six opening ports which provide plenty of cross breeze. There are often areas in the cabin that are out of the main breeze that flows in the hatch and out the companionway. A fan can help here -- we use one for the forward cabin to make the hot sticky nights a bit more breathable. Rain and Insect Protection Some form of rain protection for the hatches will help out on a stormy day as well. Until we built a rainproof hatch cover, on Two-Step we were forced to close all hatches except the companionway in a storm a and it gets hot quite quickly on a tropical evening. One extremely hot June night in the Bahamas the wind died almost completely. We had spent 3 days alone anchored in a narrow cut of swimming pool blue water that wound like a river between the sugar sand beaches of the low green islands on either side. Our only visitor had been a wild pink flamingo, hooked beak chasing dinner in the shallow waters of the cut. But as darkness fell the mosquitoes began to come out. With the wind gone there was nothing to keep them near home and they literally swarmed Two-Step. As I pulled our bug screen hatch out of the cockpit locker they covered me. I could swat 3 at a time -- with one swat! Down below the evening took on a surrealistic Alfred Hitchcock quality. We were under siege! When we had finished swatting the mosquitoes that came back below with me, I started noticing they were coming in around the hatch! I watched in fascination as one after another sidled through a ¼ " tear in the screen. The only noise in the still night air was the buzzing of the 50-60 that were flying vainly against the rest of the screen -- only 1½ square feet.  Our new "hatch tent" in its fairweather configuration. Folded down it allows the hatch to remain open even in moderate rain and wind. We taped up the hatch to try to seal it. We taped the port screens and still they found their way in. Then, I saw one sneak out from under the ceiling panel! He had flown in the dorade vent and towards the screen attached to the inside of the ceiling. Meeting this obstacle he must have escaped through a crack between the vent and the screen and into the space between the cabin and the ceiling. We went and hid in the forward cabin and swatted mosquitoes who found us under the sheets. I recommend this experience if you want to learn the short comings of your bug defences. Or if you want to write a horror novel! Now the new tent I've designed for the forward hatch allows us to leave the hatch open even in fairly heavy rain. The forward edge is lower than the hatch when it is folded down in the "rainy" position. The hatch itself supports the cover which just snaps on to the frame. I sewed a wooden dowel into the leading edge of the cover and grommets so it could be tied to the toerail or inner forestay. In the photo it is tied up to the inner forestay where it acts like a windscoop. Condensation A more subtle threat to comfort below decks is condensation. We were shocked to find that the underside of our mattress was mildewed after 6 months of living aboard. We now air the mattress every few days by taking the bedding off and propping it up to get air to both sides and this has helped. Friends Michael and Lise on Blue Dragon, place a plastic open weave mat between their mattress and the berth, and this has prolonged the life of the mattress. Another thing for our "to-do" list! Warm air can hold more water than cool air. If air is humid, water vapour held in the air will condense onto a cooler surface since the cooled air can no longer hold so much moisture. This situation happens if a hull with no insulation has cool (or worse, cold) water on one side and moist air on the other. On Two-Step, the hull is insulated with AirexTM foam from the settee level up to 3 inches from the deck. The area below the AirexTM is often quite damp when we're sailing in cold northern waters. Even the narrow strip above the AirexTM can be damp on some days although it is not in the water. The insulated area is never damp. In warm tropical water, we rarely experience problems. Fiberglass and metal boats are all prone to condensation. Most metal boats are insulated as a method of preventing the condensation from becoming a corrosion problem. Fiberglass boats do not need this and many have been built with a solid glass hull with no core material to act as insulation. In this case it is easiest to line the areas that suffer worst with a foam-backed "Nauga-hyde" type of material for insulation, or plastic open weave mat to keep stored items off the wet surface. (I know the conservationists will hate me for this since I understand the Nauga is nearly extinct!) |
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