• Untitled Document

    Join us on March 29rd, 7pm EST

    for the CBEC Virtual Meeting

    All EYO members and followers are welcome to join the fun and get to know the guest speaker!

    See the link below for login credentials and join us!

    March Meeting Info

    (dismiss this notice by hitting 'X', upper right)

'83 30+ Ventilation tips

csoule13

Member III
Looking for some ideas on how to better vent the boat while she's locked up during the week. The boat is an '83 30+. At the moment, we have the two cowl vents on the stern for the engine compartment. The front hatch also has a pathetic solar exhaust fan that sounds like a dying cat. After a week being locked up in the mid-atlantic heat, the boat is stale, and any odor is magnified. While we're slowly working our way through the causes of various odors, it would be nice to have a plan of attack for general airflow.

Thanks everyone,
Chris
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Air in, air out

Over the years we have tackled the ventilation problem two ways.
First we added two of the ss Beckson vents on the cabin top, one over the head and the other over the aft cabin. We keep the hatches on their "vent" position most of the year, unless a major sideways rain is forecast. They work all the time, and required very little breeze to pull inside air out.

Next I added ventilation for all (!) of the closed off areas inside -- under all settees and other places with no vents. I also replaced all of the factory zip-open "doors" on all the inside lockers with exact replacements done with Phifertex (sp) inserts rather than the stock solid cloth centers.
For an Ericson with lots of teak doors, I would have installed teak louvers in all doors.
And speaking of Doors, our boat came with chrome hooks that hold all of them open a couple inches for ventilation I have some pix in my blog here titled ("Vent Method for Cabin Doors").

Lastly, we clean out all (!) of the "hidden" spaces once a year with bleach & soap & wet rags and wipe dry. Once you get ahead of the mold spores, it's pretty easy to keep them out. And lest you assume that this was always easy... our "fixer upper" boat was a veritable Mold Farm when we bought it in '94 -- looked gross and smelled gross.

Happy eradicating,
:rolleyes:

Loren

ps: I have heard examples of those solar fans for years on other boats, bad bearings crying for help. That was a reason we wanted only a "passive" vent.
 
Last edited:

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Thanks Loren. I assume you mean these: http://www.beckson.com/images/c-6rsat600.jpg

Makes sense. We're lucky so far to seem generally mold-free. I underestimated the funk that the bilge can grow. Some judicially applied elbow grease has gone quite a ways on that.

Yup that's the model.
If you look at my Album on this site, one of our vents is visible/prominent in photo #13.

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/album.php?albumid=26&attachmentid=8718

Loren
 
Last edited:

Pat O'Connell

Member III
Beckson Solar Vent

Hi Respected Sailors

Beckson solar vents (2) have worked geat on the E28+ for 32 years. We have replaced both once when a new rechargeable battery would not get them going. Both Vents are overhead in the house deck. Negative vent in the head and odorless (sp) head chemical make the head smell clean. The positive vent is in front of the head door and blows a nice little breeze to half of the V berth. We store them off the boat during the winter and replace with the plastic plug that came with them. Rechargeable batteries last about (3) years but we are only in the water for (4) months. Probably one month of hot and humid weather.

Best Regards

Pat O'Connell
1981 E28+ Chips
 
Last edited:
Top