Following on from our last post on this topic, here is our improvement tip #2 for 2018.
During July, we experienced some VERY hot days along the Turquoise Coast between Gocek and the Kekova Roads in Turkey. The image below taken of the thermometer at the navigation station was average for the some of days last month, with us seeing a top temperature of 41.5° C (that's 106.7° F for you folks in the US).
While we are never shy to start the generator and use the air-conditioning on extremely hot days, it is not always ideal to use in the galley and saloon, especially when cooking.
Last year while shopping online for cabin fans, I came across a company called Caframo from Canada. After reading good reviews about the company, we bought 4 of their white Maestro fans - 3 for each of the guest cabins and 1 for the galley area above the plugs.
So far, we have been really happy with the fans. They run off 12v, they are very quiet and we like that they have a bright LED in the centre of the casing which can be switched to a red LED (which we found very useful on one of our night passages).
While shopping for the Maestro fans, I saw that Caframo also has in their range a bigger hatch mounted blower and suction fan called the Taku. Knowing that Catherine gets hot at night and that we have a big hatch directly above our bed in the master cabin I decided to order 2 of the Taku's - one for our cabin, and one to have as a spare.
I am diverting a bit from the main reason for this post, but hopefully it will all make sense in the next paragraph or two.
The first thing to note for anyone clicking on the hyperlinks I have added in bold to take you directly to their website, is that the size of the hatches Caframo use to display the Taku must be very big. When I looked at all the pictures of the fan on their website, I was sure that our large hatches would be big enough for this fan. However, when our delivery of fans arrived in Italy, I found that the Taku fan is too big to suction clamp onto any of the Saba 50 hatches.
Caframo website picture of Taku fan
Plan B for our master cabin has been to mount it above our bed, with the suction cups removed and small screws drilled under the 4 feet of the fan into the wood panel above the window curtains. The 12v wire runs behind the curtains and tucks behind the white paneling and plugs into a 12v socket next to the lamp at the master cabin dressing table. All wires are hidden and it works perfectly. In fact, where it is now is better than if we could have suction mounted it to the hatch, as I would no longer be able to pop my head out of that hatch, as I often do at night, when checking on things while at anchor.
The fan has 4 speeds from gentle breeze to mini tornado and Cath loves it blowing on her all night.
However, of all the fans bought, the one that has been the biggest surprise, the biggest help and the main reason for this blog post has been the spare Taku we bought.
Why, you may ask?
The SABA 50 has a small Lewmar hatch directly above the stove top in the galley and this fan slides into the opening as though it was made-to-fit.
We would often find the smoke alarm going off while someone was cooking in the galley, even though we had the front windows open, sliding door open and hatch above the cooker top fully open. Spare Taku fan to the rescue. The fan is not permanently mounted there, but we place it into the opening when cooking. We have hidden the power cable in the LED lighting recess of the saloon ceiling and run it to the mast post, behind the post and into the cigarette lighter 12v socket at the navigation station. When we need to use it, we slide the fan into position, plug it in and set the speed. We have rotated the fan 180 degrees in its frame (which it is designed to do) so that the air is extracted rather than blown into the galley.
When we have finished cooking, we unplug it, wipe it with a paper towel to remove any oily residue that has built up and pack it away.
So now, the saloon is cooler when cooking, smoke is removed and we don't have to come inside to find our daughter cooking onions with her swim mask on!
