Refueler
Well-Known Member
Dessicant solutions are useless because with passage of air through the boat by venting soon overwhelms the dessicant and you end up with a bowl of corrosive fluid. I've tried it and in fact I believe it increased the problem because I couldn't get to boat often enough to service the dessicant container.
A de-humidifier will have maximum effect in a no air-flow situation as then it will be drying a static volume of air. Ventilating will introduce a new supply of moist outside air.
This is why a dessicant jar in a lab has a close fitting lid.
Ventilating the boat and keeping air flowing is first step, along with this the boats internals hopefully equalise to local ambient temp and reduce cool surfaces to condense water out to. The matter of making sure nothing touches underdeck is twofold ... 1 to allow air to circulate freely under the deck, 2 to stop items "wicking" moisture .... before it can be vented out.
Just to give example of a boat that is seemingly poor on vents ... I have two boats with limited vents. My main boat has vent panel in top washboard - permanently free to vent and a mushroom vent in WC area that is always half wound up open. There are no other vents in that boat and I only open forehatch / main washboards at times to free-vent the boat. My other smaller weekender has poorly fitted washboards that allow air to enter and a mushroom vent fwd cabin top ... that is always open as well.
Both boats suffer a very small amount of condensation - which I regard as minimal and would affect most others ... without resort to extra actions. The secret is venting ... getting the air moving through.
A de-humidifier will have maximum effect in a no air-flow situation as then it will be drying a static volume of air. Ventilating will introduce a new supply of moist outside air.
This is why a dessicant jar in a lab has a close fitting lid.
Ventilating the boat and keeping air flowing is first step, along with this the boats internals hopefully equalise to local ambient temp and reduce cool surfaces to condense water out to. The matter of making sure nothing touches underdeck is twofold ... 1 to allow air to circulate freely under the deck, 2 to stop items "wicking" moisture .... before it can be vented out.
Just to give example of a boat that is seemingly poor on vents ... I have two boats with limited vents. My main boat has vent panel in top washboard - permanently free to vent and a mushroom vent in WC area that is always half wound up open. There are no other vents in that boat and I only open forehatch / main washboards at times to free-vent the boat. My other smaller weekender has poorly fitted washboards that allow air to enter and a mushroom vent fwd cabin top ... that is always open as well.
Both boats suffer a very small amount of condensation - which I regard as minimal and would affect most others ... without resort to extra actions. The secret is venting ... getting the air moving through.