Parker Sandwich

[jeffnick]

Thanks Mokee, for a great time on Lake Kerr. Your new 200 Yammy sure was a comfort considering our rigs are over 40 years old.

 

[Megabyte]

Sweet!

 

[Mokee]

Great time and great company. We spent 6 nites aboard at Lake John Kerr on the Virginia/NC border and had a great time exploring the lake. This lake is a terrific resource. We marked a huge number of fish on sonar.

 

[fighterpilot]

Looks like a roof a/c on the parker. That configuration is of interest to me as well, when I finally get my Parker. Is it a regular RV roof unit or is it special made for the marine environment? How do you power it? Thanks

 

[Mokee]

The A/C unit is a Coleman Polar Cub we bought at Camping World. http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/polar-cub-9-200-btu-coleman-mach-air-conditioner/49864d It's powered by a Honda EU2000i we ordered from Wise Sales. http://www.wisesales.com/generators-1/honda-generators-1/honda-eu-series.html They were purchased and installed in 2005 and have worked flawlessly. We also use the Honda to power a heater, microwave oven, coffee maker and George Foreman grill.

We chose the RV A/C route over a marine A/C unit because we sometimes stay aboard the boat on the trailer as we travel around the country. The A/C keeps cabin as low as 20 degrees below outside temps. It sure is nice for nites on the hook when we close up the pilot house to keep the noseums out.

 

[fighterpilot]

Mokee, you can see from my previous posts the a/c-gen route you took is the way I want to go as well. I am curious where you put the genny. I did this with a previous boat but it had a tower on it and I put the Honda 2000 genny up there along with an aux tank so I had many hours of house power available. I guess with the Parker I was thinking up on the roof as well and have a carbon monoxide detector in the cabin as a precaution. Don't intend to sleep in the boat but with the door closed still need to be careful.

The Honda 2000 is a great generator, mine is 11 years old and served us thru 3 hurricanes, and still cranks on the first or second pull.

When you travel with boat on the trailer what is your tow vehicle? What kind of brakes does the trailer have. Surge Hydraulic? Elect over Hyd? Disc? Drum? Tandem axle trailer?
How do you handle the permit requirements. Do you use flags and banners? Thanks

 

[Mokee]

fighterpilot - when using the Honda, it sits on a rubber pad on top of the port jump seat/battery locker. A piece of starboard just a bit larger is attached to the lid. Wiring for the A/C runs under the port washboard. You can see plug end of the wiring in the photo.

We don't have an auxiliary tank for gas for the Honda. A key switch activates a bulb primed, auto fuel pump that pulls gas from the main tank to refill the genny. One fill lasts overnite. We have 2 CO alarms (the kind that have an lcd display) in the pilothouse for safety.

You can see our tow vehicle in the 2nd pic above. It's the white F-150 2x4. It has the factory max tow package supposedly rated to 11,200 lbs. Our boat and trailer weigh approx. 6,600 lbs. and the F-150 easily handles the rig. The dual axle, cypress bunk trailer has surge disc brakes. We added extra bunks to the trailer. At 8'6" in width, the 2120 doesn't need permits, flags or banners. I believe the 2320 wouldn't either.

edit=changed 1st to 2nd pic

 

[fighterpilot]

Thanks for the additional information. I missed the size of your boat in the very beginning so my dumb question regarding flags etc. I'm looking for a 2520 which will require stuff to be legal on the road and now wonder if the cabin area on a 20 is that much larger than yours and would require a little more a/c???. Thanks

 

[jeffnick]

Oops - bad link. Try this one...
OK one more try.

http://tinyurl.com/nzwkopa

 

[Mokee]

Thanks for the additional information. I missed the size of your boat in the very beginning so my dumb question regarding flags etc. I'm looking for a 2520 which will require stuff to be legal on the road and now wonder if the cabin area on a 20 is that much larger than yours and would require a little more a/c???. Thanks

Personally, the most boat I'd be willing to drag around the country is a 2320. IMO a 2520 would be OK for short tows from storage to splash and back. The Polar Cub should cool the pilothouse helm area OK. I don't know about the v-berth tho.

 

[ctown67]

i have an old fashioned "wall shaker" mounted in a hole behind the captain's chair. i am planning on getting a Honda generator sometime. As of now we plug it into shore power when we are in the keys. The wall shaker keeps the cabin as cold as 72 in the dead of summer. it looks a little red neck, but it came with the boat and has worked well for the last two years. i really like the rv unit and will definitely look into it,
thanks for posting.

 

[fighterpilot]

My first boat was about a 1968, 31 foot Chris Craft Commander Sports Express. I cut a hole in the aft wall an put in a 6000 btu unit. Worked great. Put the Honda 2000 up on the fly bridge and plugged the boat's power cord into it. But in hind sight it was a travesty to cut a hole in that classic boat. A roof mount would have been better. I agree a 2520 is a little too much boat to be hauling around the country. I misread the first post an thought they the boat under discussion was a 2520 being hauled around the country, hence my question. My mistake. We keep the boats at the family dock, for the most part, and will haul out for maintenance and hurricanes. Maybe a trip now an than to another part of the Gulf for a change of scenery. Appreciate all the input on this post. Thanks FP