Temporary Mirage 12000 BTU AC unit for summer comfort - 2017

This Mirage unit is a one ton AC unit made here in Mexico.

April 2017 - s\v Elegant'sea is currently tied up in Marina Mazatlán, Mexico
 It is a 12000 BTU unit and the same size as the Mermaid Marine Air 12000 BTU unit we have for cooling the salon. It is not working. Mermaid Marine Air said they will fix it for free and take care of all the shipping if we can get it to the USA. With our new to us VW Jetta we can now motor it up to the states and ship it off for repair. In the mean time this unit will keep the salon cool. At present it keeps the whole boat cool. Come the summer months we will also need to run the Mermaid Marine Air 5200 BTU unit that we have for cooling the stateroom and head area. It runs great and has since we left the USA.

OK now we need to put it on a hatch. For us we need it to cool the salon.

We luckily have to big 20x20 hatches and because we hang on the port side of the salon the Mirage unit will be put in the starboard hatch. The bad news is the hatch is close to where the deck drops off to the stateroom coach deck which makes it a bit difficult to configure.

We did get it mounted and up and running.

We took the plastic vent grate from the Mermaid Marine Air unit and some hose and taped it to the Mirage unit. This way we can direct the air any way we wish. But more importantly the hot air that rises does not get mixed up with the cold air that is coming out of the unit.

This is just a temporarily set up because we remove it to go sailing and stow it on deck, which is a real pain!

This does work good for keeping us comfy. Also on a noisy night we can close the boat up and turn on the air and it is cool and quiet inside the boat, s\v Elegantsea.  

This looks a little Gorky but it works. The plywood is sitting on two fenders. There is also two 1x1 pieces of wood to tilt the Mirage to port for water drainage.

Our dock mates told us to use some windshield sun protectors to make the shroud to vent the ac air inside the boat. The hatch makes the top rigid part of the shroud. That's what we did, it took two windshield covers to make the shroud. It is insulation and |Debbie made the shroud by taping the cut pieces to form the shroud\scoop.

This ac unit is on a Catalina. He says it does not keep the boat cool in the summer. It does help in the spring.

This is on another boat and the same thing applies. It helps in the winter and spring but does not keep the boat cool in the hot summer months, the owner said.