We’ve had three Caframo Bora fans installed in the boat for about 4 years now. On the plus side, they work. On the minus side they’re noisy (they rattle) and they’re hard to clean. And when they get dirty they get noisier. It’s a vicious cycle.
We have one Hella brand oscillating fan over the navigation table that we installed a year or so ago. We installed it over the nav station hoping we could also use it to ventilate the galley while cooking. While we like it while sitting at the nav table, it doesn’t have enough umpff to push the air into the galley. And it was too bulky to mount anywhere in the galley.
We wanted to try other brands/models of fans so we bought a few to try. The hard part is there’s not a lot to choose from and they’re all really expensive. I think when we bought the Boras they were around $60 each and that’s the Port Supply price (wholesale West Marine.) It’s a lot to spend when you need about 6 of them. We decided to try another Hella (but smaller and it doesn’t oscillate) and another Caframo (the Sirocco II model.)
Hella Turbo
The Hella Turbo is a three-blade, two-speed fan. It’s very simple and small. We mounted it in the salon above the table. It’s quiet and pushes a lot of air. The good and bad thing about it is it doesn’t have a back guard over the blades. It’s good because it’s easy to clean, but bad because you could easily nick your fingers with the blades. I’m not sure that it would actually cut your skin, but it might hurt. Port Supply doesn’t sell this model so we bought it from Defender for $72.
Caframo Sirocco II
This fan is a beast. It has two blades, three speeds and a timer. It swivels in any direction and tucks back against the bulkhead completely out-of-the-way. We mounted it in the galley over the freezer and oven. We really like this fan. It’s nice to have air blowing directly on you while cooking and I love that it lays flat against the bulkhead. The only downside we see is the size. While it works great in the location we’ve mounted it, it may be difficult to find other places to mount a fan this big. And it was the most expensive one we bought at $100 from Defender.
Vetus Ventilator
The last fan we bought was a Vetus ventilator fan. We wanted to install a fan in the head, but there’s just not a lot of room in there. We decided to try this fan because it can mount to our dorade vent and stays mostly out-of-the-way. Because it blows air out of the boat, you don’t really feel any cooler with the fan running, but we’re hoping it will remove humidity out of the head. We know it definitely moves the air because we can feel it coming out of the dorade cowl vents.
You can watch our video of the installations below or on our YouTube channel.
