Air conditioning in the fly bridge

I am now leaning to a Mainship with a fly bridge, but also feel I need air conditioning (with clears) in the fly bridge.

If you have a fly bridge how many of yawl have air conditioning up there. Can you be so kind to tell me the make, year and model? I am now trying to figure out what type and year boat I may need to go to.

You're on a boat. You don't need A/C on the flybridge. It is cooler on the water. Embrace the nature. A/C on flybridges is for 100+ footers and ascots :lol:

To us in the PNW ac on a FB seems totally nuts.

Greetings,
Re: Post #'s 2&3. Horse pucky! Mr. My is looking for solutions not ill founded comments. I can think of several occasions where I would have dearly loved to have clears and AC /heat on our FB.

I have ac on our fky bridge. Two 18000 btu units on an OA 456.

Gordon

Get rid of the flybridge and steer from the pilothouse like a real man. No one likes pilothouses anyway!




PS: I always wanted to be a troll

Almost any marine a/c can be made to work up there.

The trick is sizing the a/c properly as flybridge enclosures don't fit many of the standard calculators for sizing the a/c.

If it were me, I would check some greenhouse literature and see if they discuss heat gain in btus.

Another avenue is just assume your flybridge is like an SUV and the vents will blow directly on you. So total cooling is less important and the vollume and windows might be similar.

My wife and I sure wished we had air conditioning, when cruising through GA. Just for the sake of the Damm horse Flys, they will eat you alive. Many unbearable days, with no wind, high humidity, on the ditch, also.
As far as the enclosure, we would go with solid eztcy. Better fit, but not cheap. Also you should have a solid top and not a Bimini, for best results.you might also want to have a clear drop down stradaglass, behind the helm area, to contain the area air conditioned.
There is another solution, you might want to look at, a mister system, less money , and you can use it on an open boat. Trust me, if you travel inside on the east coast, in the summer, no matter what anybody says, go with AC, you will not regret it.
We always used on flybidge, due to debris, and poor makers due to cut backs, from the states.

Conciser a big 24000btu floor mount split system
https://samsunghvac.com/products/floor_standing.html

We don't have AC on our flybridge. OTOH, we can easily open up each and every clear panel (10 in all) so we can get decent breezes if there's any air movement at all to take advantage of here on the Chesapeake. In fact, during Summer months, I just take all 5 aft panels off altogether, since that improves visibility.

Given the magnification effect of sunlight through clears... ours would take a fairly serious AC, I think, to be useful all the time.

Sometimes, if it's all that hot... we can look for shade in the cockpit, or even come inside in the saloon AC. Sometimes the angle of the sun is such that it can be a little blinding anyway, at least for a while... and AC wouldn't solve that...

-Chris

Ah.....a reason for 2 helms.....

Hotrod said:

My wife and I sure wished we had air conditioning, when cruising through GA. Just for the sake of the Damm horse Flys, they will eat you alive. Many unbearable days, with no wind, high humidity, on the ditch, also.

As far as the enclosure, we would go with solid eztcy. Better fit, but not cheap. Also you should have a solid top and not a Bimini, for best results.you might also want to have a clear drop down stradaglass, behind the helm area, to contain the area air conditioned.

There is another solution, you might want to look at, a mister system, less money , and you can use it on an open boat. Trust me, if you travel inside on the east coast, in the summer, no matter what anybody says, go with AC, you will not regret it.

We always used on flybidge, due to debris, and poor makers due to cut backs, from the states.

Click to expand...

Hotrod, you know where I am coming from. I live in Hilton Head SC, and travel NC, SC, and GA all the time. In June, July, and Aug, I don't know which is worse, the sun or the bugs. I really want the FB but also looks like I will need to invest in AC. - thanks

I've been thinking about this thread. Here in summer the temperature averages about 120 degrees and of course we have high humidity since we are a peninsula. We can boat in the summer as long as there is shade as there is usually a small breeze during the day, even a few knots. At night it gets worse because there is no wind, and the humidity will rise to the 85%-100% range (measured).

However in the winter the temperature may be cooler (70's) but the high humidity makes it very uncomfortable again with no breeze.

So the point is that I don't think aircon is a sufficient solution so I'll most likely install a whole house dehumidifier which will make the cabin bearable most of the year (8-9 months).

The point is does anyone think that it would be a practical solution for your uses as well? You are up there on the flybridge in your oxygen tent, which is not necessarily tightly sealed, but I imagine it can get very stuffy - dry heat versus wet heat. An efficient dehumidifier can run off the inverter and not even require the genny.

When I bought my boat, it had AC for the flybridge with a set of clear enclosures. I am in Miami. I admit that I never used it, but I can tell you what it was - it was a low profile RV rooftop AC unit that ran on 110v. I eventually removed it. I like the flybridge open with the breeze in my face. What I did like about the concept of this AC unit over a marine unit is that I wasn't having to pump water waaaaay up there. The amount of head required for that run is probably why a previous owner installed the RV unit rather than a marine unit - I think that was the right decision. It worked fine; I just didn't want that up there. I have a lower helm in the pilothouse that is air conditioned if I ever felt the need to drive in air conditioning.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Re: Post #'s 2&3. Horse pucky! Mr. My is looking for solutions not ill founded comments. I can think of several occasions where I would have dearly loved to have clears and AC /heat on our FB.

Click to expand...

RT,
For a man that takes so much stock in humor it's hard to belive you'd think my comments were too subtle.

But w the plastic "oxygen tent" I can imagine getting well past the comfort zone.

Here is the slide show of enclosed flybridges from the EZ2CY website:

https://www.ez2cy.com/gallery.aspx

(EZ2CY = Easy to see why)

I am soooo glad we have open FB with Bimini top in really nice climate. Sooooo Glad!

AC is worth considering, but will be hard to provide AC for the whole flybridge. I'd love to have AC on the new to me Mainship I just got. I'd bet there's some good solutions and anxious to hear what others have done and what they have that works.

A water to water unit (typical marine units) may be hard to pump water up there, but would probably be the most efficient. But there's a lot of other choices, including portable units, misters, etc.

My buddy has AC on his 46 Sundance, but only blows air for the front seat in the cockpit and isn't designed to do the whole area, which is open. However just that little bit that blows on the captain and those seated next to him makes a HUGE difference in the Florida summer heat.

Perhaps, one could take a vent off the salon AC unit and feed it up to the flybridge, and would just adjust the valves to favor the bridge.

The previous owners of our OA 456 installed two 18000 BTU units with large vents coming out of the flybridge binnacle (or what ever is the correct term for the command center). The two ACs are part of four units which are supplied with a 220 volt water pump. (The boat has five ACs, but the unit in the master suite is supplied by its own dedicated pump).

We picked up the boat in Lauderdale last April, with temps in the mid 80s. With the strataglass closed, we could have hung meat in the flybridge. I imagine that we will use it mostly for those extremely buggy/rainy/foggy days. Because it is reverse cycle heat, I also see us using it in the fall as we make our way back down the ICW to Florida.

If we have a breeze, I don't see us using it to keep comfortable, unless the biting flies. become terrible. Also, I can see it used while entertaining at dock if no breeze is available.

Gordon

They have split systems today, so you don't need to pump water to the bridge. Like others have said sizing is an issue, might want to have it directed at you because the enclosure glass is going to make the bridge an easy bake oven.

On our boat, the three inside units are split, with the compressors in the engine room. The two units in the flybridge are all-in-one units. with water supplied by the pump in the engine room.