Adding onboard air conditioning

On a visit to the superyacht yards in Florida I noticed that virtually every yacht under refit had large air conditioning ducts being fed aboard. A worker told me ruefully that Florida only became habitable when aircon was invented. Outside, the humidity is exhausting.

Aircon is not an option on a superyacht – it comes as standard, usually from cold water chillers in the engine room. The HVAC systems will be configured so the vents and grills form part of the décor, with the cold air ‘falling ‘ from overhead ducts. Displaced warm air is sucked in at the sole level, and push out warm air when in heating mode.

With high start-up loads, HVAC systems are still power hungry when running, but technology has allowed them to be zoned for day and night operation. Only those sleeping cabins with occupants receive cold air, for example. A system from Dometic allows the chillers to work normally for just 10% of normal power use, allowing the HVAC to run silently on batteries overnight.

a portable aircon unit being deployed in Florida during refitting of a yacht. without the yacht’s own system in action, working below in this dark-hulled vessel would be uncomfortably hot