Wednesday 26 June 2013

Weather systems on Gannet

It has been some time since I posted.  I have been ill.  Chicken Pox eradicated the only spare time I had on board over the last few weeks.  It did give me the opportunity to sleep a lot on board.

One thing I realised was that while the winter months were cold the fight in terms of keeping warm revolved around the ari flow.  There was a constant draft from the upper deck, down the stairs and into the cabin section.  But now the weather has warmed up this air flow has stopped.  Not a bad thing in one respect but I soon realised that with the air horns sealed up on deck (to stop freezing air getting in) there was no fresh air coming into the rooms.  Gulp.  I nearly suffocated (ok over dramatised).

What of course is occurring is the simple fact that cold ari sinks and warm air rises.  So in winter the cool air on the upper deck sinks down the stairs giving a nice clean air flow into the cabins.  With the warmed up weather the air no longer sinks.  Its basically got its own weather patterns on Gannet.

This of obvious really but does lead to some rethinking.  The air flow will need to be more sophisticated.  The air horns on the deck simply allow too much cold air into the ship and to close them off leaves the ship basically air tight.  I will need to fit some basic warm air ventilation into each area to provide fresh air without full force direct exposure to the external cold air.