Engine room heat

[Mambo42]

Thanks Bob, good to hear from another Devefer owner.

First up, the two blowers are not both blowers. I had a DeFever 49 CPMY and made the same misidentification. One of them pulls air into the engine room and the other blows it out. Make sure you have this happening. Sometimes, someone will put two blowers into the engine room and then get concerned because it won't cool down. Check the wiring. Motors will run backwards, overheat and trip the switch too soon. Been there done that and have the proverbial T-Shirt.

The 2 vents forward in the ER draw air straight into the engines, they are not venting into the ER. The exhaust is a wet exhaust, which goes straight out via the back.

The 2 aft vents is a bit unclear which direction they are going, but there is definitely no airflow in the ER at this moment. I would feel a draft and that is lacking at this moment.

Second, they are not continuous operating "blowers." Check the specs, they should be high volume and after a few minutes they should automatically shut off.

At the moment the port blower shuts itself down after appr 1 min, the stbd blower after about 5 min, the circuit breakers simply trip. To me it means there is something wrong with the blowers, so I will exchange them in any case. But regardless of that, even when the blowers are running I have no airflow in the ER

Third, how hot is hot and where is it that hot in the engine room? You'll find that temps change throughout the engine room. Hot spots, sure.

I did not have a thermometer in the ER yet, but when you enter the ER after running the engines you instantly start to sweat and being used to 100 degrees temps in the Caribbean I know that I don't sweat in those temps. My guess is we are up at about 130 at the moment. And that is running the engines with the ER door open and the hatch to the lazarette removed.

And the place where the batteries are located in their insulator fiberglass boxes will be cooler. Batteries can take a lot of heat. But, won't charge at high temps. That's your clue to know that the temp in the room is too hot. Tape some cheap thermometers around the engine room, in the battery boxes or on top. Make sure the lids sit down on the boxes. If they're angled up due to extra wires directly on the batteries, re-route those through fuses or breakers - check standards. Get an NMEA/ABYC certified electrician. I was a USCG Aviation Electrician's mate and there is a difference between working on a house, boat or airplane. A very big difference.

Unfortunately the batteries are not in boxes. They are standing open in the ER, blocked from moving sideways and from moving up or down, but they are not in a box.

Next, check the vent boxes on either side of the boat. The clothes dryers vent through there and do tend to fill them up with lint style debris. Ours vented on the starboard side engine vent box. You can sometimes tell this is an issue when you notice lint floating around the engine room when the dryer is running. Talk about an underwear changing event first time you see that LOL. Also, as an aside, check the vent hoses from the dryer to make sure they're clear. Poor drying will clue you into clogged vents (we changed our hoses out).

Luckily I have no dryer on board, so that won't be a problem
I can hear blowers running at the vents where the engine draws air, but at the rear vents I don't hear any blowers at all.

Get an Infrared Thermometer, Digital Laser Gun is Non-Contact Thermometer with a Temperature Range -4 to 752-Degree Fahrenheit ($30) to check the engine room, engines, etc. Make sure your Lehman's aren't running extra hot. Call American Diesel (804) 435-3107 https://americandieselcorp.com/ or email lehmandiesel@gmail.com for the temps, spare parts lists, and so on.

I have one of those thermometers and the engines are running perfect at 78 degrees Celsius. The heat in the ER comes primarily from those two 78 degrees warm chunks of metal radiating their heat into the ER where there is currently hardly any airflow. The moment I switch on the generator it becomes even worse.

Finally, you might want to join the https://www.defevercruisers.com/ forum for additional help. I know several 49 PH owners and they would love to help you with specifics about the boat as they are all currently cruising on them.

Tried to join that forum already 3 times, each time I get an automated e-mail they will be in touch shortly, but that never happened. First time was about Oct 2021, right after I bought the boat. So I just gave up. Perhaps it is because the boat is lying in Europe and not in the US.

We actually met with Art DeFever and three other people in the engine room of a 49 CPMY when we were a rendezvous. Before passing, he made all but a couple of them.

He must have been full of interesting stories, he built some awesome boats and mine is 43 years old, but still going strong !

The 49 PH is a bullet proof vessel with four inch thick hull at the keel moving on up to .75" at the gunnels. The Lehman Ford's are also bullet proof if you take care of them.

That was one of the main selling points for me. This boat of over engineered and that is the way I like it !
Luckily the engines were still OK and now that I gave them extensive service (doing everything short of taking them out completely) they should be up and running for many more years to come. I don't know what the former owners did, but we will change the oil/filters every 150 hrs, change the oil in the minimecs every 50 hrs, change the coolant every year and keep a sharp look out for anything that sounds or looks to need attention. They are old, but they have many more hours ahead of them.


I understand you sold your Devefer again. If I may ask what made you sell the boat ? Was there anything particular you did not enjoy ?

 

[HypnoBob]

When we finished the loop and arrived back at our home yacht club, there was a couple on the dock telling us they wanted to buy our boat and do what we did - the Great Loop.

The Houston Chronicle asked my wife to write a blog, which she did. They followed it. At one time Kem had over 6,000 readers.

We turned them down. Six months later, my wife had a severe heart health issue and we would not be using the boat for a couple of years. Fortunately, she was the head nurse on the cardiovascular floor at the Houston Methodist and the docs there took care of her. It's now resolved. But, we didn't want the boat to just sit so we sold it to the persistent couple.

It's been sold twice since, each with a couple out to do the loop. We've been back on board a few times to help them with various items such as set up the WiFi and Cell phone boosters (my original passwords were still in use).

And it's for sale once again: https://www.yachtworld.com/yacht/2001-defever-49-cpmy-8283966/

If you look at the photos, we had the Plasdeck teak installed over all the areas with non-skid during a major repair and refit after hurricane Ike set her up in the parking lot at our home marina, Lakewood Yacht Club in Seabrook Tx (we're now in Florida).

We left a copy of the blog books on board (they're still there), so we get calls all the time from the next new owners.

If we were going to go back to bigger boat, we would most likely look at the DeFever 45 PH and the DeFever 49 PH. Right now, our next boat is going to be an American Tug 365 - once the prices start stabilizing - maybe in a year or two. LOL.

Bob

 

[Mambo42]

When we finished the loop and arrived back at our home yacht club, there was a couple on the dock telling us they wanted to buy our boat and do what we did - the Great Loop.

The Houston Chronicle asked my wife to write a blog, which she did. They followed it. At one time Kem had over 6,000 readers.

We turned them down. Six months later, my wife had a severe heart health issue and we would not be using the boat for a couple of years. Fortunately, she was the head nurse on the cardiovascular floor at the Houston Methodist and the docs there took care of her. It's now resolved. But, we didn't want the boat to just sit so we sold it to the persistent couple.

It's been sold twice since, each with a couple out to do the loop. We've been back on board a few times to help them with various items such as set up the WiFi and Cell phone boosters (my original passwords were still in use).

And it's for sale once again: https://www.yachtworld.com/yacht/2001-defever-49-cpmy-8283966/

If you look at the photos, we had the Plasdeck teak installed over all the areas with non-skid during a major repair and refit after hurricane Ike set her up in the parking lot at our home marina, Lakewood Yacht Club in Seabrook Tx (we're now in Florida).

We left a copy of the blog books on board (they're still there), so we get calls all the time from the next new owners.

If we were going to go back to bigger boat, we would most likely look at the DeFever 45 PH and the DeFever 49 PH. Right now, our next boat is going to be an American Tug 365 - once the prices start stabilizing - maybe in a year or two. LOL.

Bob

Good to hear your wife has fully recovered.

Saw your boat and she is still immaculate ! By now she knows the loop so well, there is no need of anyone steering


With the current fuel prices I guess we will see prices dropping quite quickly. Too many people have a boat, hardly use it and with these fuel prices they just decide it is time to say goodbye.

Or otherwise find a boat in Europe, the Med is absolutely worth seeing by boat, especially the Eastern part (Croatia, Montenegro, Greece and Turkey). Spain, France and Italy are best seen by car / camper.



Any case, thanks for your story !

 

[Gypsy Island]

Last year i bought a similar boat (Island Gypsy 51) and recognized the same issue with the ER temperature being underway.
But it's not the only thing that bother's me. After a few hours, when the engines and all the stuff in the ER have warmed up, once you stop, the heat spreads across the floor and it gets pretty uncomfortable.

After some calculations I came to the conclusion that cooling the ER with air alone is quite impossible, since the possible cross-sections are far undersized by the manufacturer's design. So i would go with a combination of seawater/water cooler feeding a water/air truck cooler in combination with a big fan. The seawater/water cooler could be placed somewhere in the bilge and the water/air cooler at the top of the ER.

Should be possible to gain about 80 to 120 kw of cooling capacity, so the ER stays really cool when one is underway or gets moored, besides the noise is even lower as there are no fans blowing outside.

Maybe an unusual idea, but worth considering...

Gyp

 

[Mambo42]

Last year i bought a similar boat (Island Gypsy 51) and recognized the same issue with the ER temperature being underway.
But it's not the only thing that bother's me. After a few hours, when the engines and all the stuff in the ER have warmed up, once you stop, the heat spreads across the floor and it gets pretty uncomfortable.

After some calculations I came to the conclusion that cooling the ER with air alone is quite impossible, since the possible cross-sections are far undersized by the manufacturer's design. So i would go with a combination of seawater/water cooler feeding a water/air truck cooler in combination with a big fan. The seawater/water cooler could be placed somewhere in the bilge and the water/air cooler at the top of the ER.

Should be possible to gain about 80 to 120 kw of cooling capacity, so the ER stays really cool when one is underway or gets moored, besides the noise is even lower as there are no fans blowing outside.

Maybe an unusual idea, but worth considering...

Gyp

I have seen the ventilators with the water reservoirs, they really bring the temperature down, but.............it is very moist air and am not so sure I want all that moisture in my engine room. I also have a lot of fuse boxes and other electrical equipment there. Once the temperature drops the moisture will condensate again and cause more problems.

 

[Gypsy Island]

Hi mambo,
obviously you misunderstood me. Of course I don't want to spray water into the ER.

The idea is to pump cool seawater through a radiator such used in trucks and blow the air in the ER through the radiator using one big fan. This would be the second stage.

Such truck engine radiators have a very large cooling capacity, about 40 % of the nominal enginepower in kW. The only issue is the poor durability against corrosion. Therefore i suggested using a seawater/water cooler as a first stage, which are pretty corrosion resistant and easy available. Of course we need two electric waterpumps to turn the water in the two circles.

If one could find a corrosion resistant water/air cooler with high cooling capacity, going with one stage only, will be much easier.

Gyp

 

[Marco Flamingo]

I'm quite certain that I don't have an engine room heat problem, but just to be sure (and curious), I bought one of these recording blue tooth thermometers. Under $15 and it keeps crazy accurate records for up to a year (temp, humidity, dew point and barometric pressure). I was hoping that it had a settable high temp alarm, but apparently that's asking too much. Still will be interesting seeing engine room temp over time. But getting notice on my phone of rising ER temp (>130F) or ER humidity (leaking coolant) would be great.

Leaving a hatch open for ER cooling is a non-starter for me. Even being very careful, I managed to take a fall into the ER. Hand and knee injury. Hand was okay in a month. Knee took almost a year (no surgery this time). Now I'm very very very very careful. For me, engine room temp wouldn't warrant opening a hatch (except in the case of an actual fire). Easy for me to say with a little 80 hp Lehman in a "big" engine room.

 

[Marco Flamingo]

It took me awhile, but I did figure out the temp and humidity alarms (high and low for both) on the wifi thermo. I can monitor my ER and then decide what to use as the alarm points. I think I'll go put it in the oven for a test run.

 

[Mambo42]

Hi mambo,
obviously you misunderstood me. Of course I don't want to spray water into the ER.

The idea is to pump cool seawater through a radiator such used in trucks and blow the air in the ER through the radiator using one big fan. This would be the second stage.

Such truck engine radiators have a very large cooling capacity, about 40 % of the nominal enginepower in kW. The only issue is the poor durability against corrosion. Therefore i suggested using a seawater/water cooler as a first stage, which are pretty corrosion resistant and easy available. Of course we need two electric waterpumps to turn the water in the two circles.

If one could find a corrosion resistant water/air cooler with high cooling capacity, going with one stage only, will be much easier.

Gyp

Ah, ok, now I understand what you mean. Here in the Caribbean we have ventilators that use water for cooling. They evaporate water as they blow air (like a ventury system) and they do leave a lot of moisture in the air. I confused your idea with this option.
Passing the air through a radiator could be an option, that won't moisturize the air. Thanks for clearing that up.