Kick up Rudders: I'm fairly certain that it's going to want to straighten the wheel and the rudder as it is kicking up because of the position of the universal joint piviot, so if your hard over watch your wrists. I'm binge watching these episodes and loving every one of them, thanks for all of your detail.
An enjoyable and informative video! The custom Dorade box shape is inspired; I see one small possible alteration, but I'm certain that you've already thought about it and will test it out, while you're fine tuning the design. When you're researching the air conditioning and heating systems, did you consider the addition of a dehumidifier option? They take so much less energy and it's easier to deal with a dry heat (too many summers in the South Pacific can attest to this! 😁). I know that you're planning for any and all circumstance, and was wondering if enough storage for all of the different wet/bad/foul weather garments has been planned into the design? With your goal of multiple circumnavigations, I would imagine that you would require at least four different one-piece garments, as well as separate tops and bottoms. Layering in colder and wet climates is essential and everything is bulky (I'm writing this as I'm sorting through five different HH coats and jackets and all of the thermo layer tops!). Thank you so much for sharing and being calmly excited about this amazing project.
Hello Leon. I didn't go into detail on the dorade box, but it has three water/air separation chambers, so we hope it will work as expected, but we'll find out in testing. And yes, we are looking into dehumidifiers, in fact, there is a section about them on our website, here: www.svlynx.com/environment.html As for wet foul weather gear and also our wetsuits, we have a compartment toward the stern, on the port side, that will have a hanging rack to handle these wet types of garments, it is just to the stern of the rear cabin, with a deck hatch for access, just in front of the sugar scoop. Some of the drier type winter garments will be stored in the cabins, sometimes in the large storage area under the forward beds.
I investigated several 48 volt AC/ heating systems, and spoke with several importers at the boat show last fall in MD and had no luck. Most were priced in the stratosphere. I think the best solution right now is from Mabru. I spoke with them yesterday and for a 50 ft. Cat they recommend one 17k BTU 230v and two 12k BTU 12v. The 12 v use about half the power of most other manufacturers units.
We looked into the Mabru units awhile back. They are the same basic technology that we are currently looking at, but these are in 48v units instead of 12v, which we prefer. Price will matter though, and I don't have the cost for these yet.
I was thinking of using integral 48v AC and then a hydronic hearing solution from hurricane that runs off Diesel- this would give me heat up north where 1. I need it and 2. I won’t be able to capture as much solar - 3. Give me hot water - all without adding hours to my Gen set. - admittedly I am looking at this for a monohull where weight is not as much of an issue. Not a lot of information available on the Integral unit out there though so I can’t find if it has a reverse mode and will do heat. - I’m sure you know this but there is also a 48v anchor winch available- saving on wire size and cost for the long run forward. - Good luck and keep the videos coming….
Hello. Very informative. I watched your vlogs periodically but since the last two ones I will be a regular viewer. Great contributions you make. Thank you for that!
I looked them up awhile back, and decided against one for a performance cat our size. They are generally put on larger yachts. Here is one sites 'Cons' for a chiller system that kind of explains why we decided against them. Cons: Chillers are expensive. Installation is complex. There are more economical options for smaller yachts.
Just some thoughts; Your dorade solution looks quite interesting, hopefully you will be designing a method of sealing/locking them down for really rough weather, a little concerned that to make such a low profile intake that performs well you may be a little more vulnerable to swamping in heavy weather (I'm sure you have thought of that). Not exactly sure which ventilation system the O'Kelly's referred to but there are other designs which use the centre forward wet lockers (opened hatches mainly for use when at anchor) as intakes and have a dorade baffle in the top cnr, their efficiency can be increased by using a fabric wind scoop common for increasing hatch ventilation ..... however this may not be so useful underway (I think Balance Catamarans have a similar design?). I think some new designs are opting for sealed escape hatch that you break rather than open like a hatch ...... for me this would be preferable as the escape hatch is really only used in an emergency capsize and are when you are stuck in the hull (extremely unlikely) ...... so would rather a better permanent seal than manage the potential leak hatch seal. With the soft clears/mesh my preference is to have specifically designed built-in recesses in the coach roof to accommodate the rolled up clears in situ with a nice tidy fabric cover (like Lepoard and some of the newer Lagoons?) this negates the need to install and strip the clears off all the time or leave them rolled up and hanging. If you also consider multi colour cabin lighting that can be switched to yellow, which is less inviting to insects than white light. Most people only seem to think of installing white and/or red, but yellow can help reduce the attractiveness of your abode to flying insects at night. Be careful using bug spray, as some can melt plastics and have a detrimental effect on paint and finishes ...... as well as it is poison not just for them, not so good for you either.
Yes, my new dorade boxes will have a method of mounting, likely bolts that go through to a backing plate. That model in the video was just a preliminary version, I have some work to go before I would print the first version for testing. Something else I didn't show in the video is that n VERY rough weather, where the boat side might be overrun by green water, we will have a plug that may be inserted from the inside of the boat that closes off the intake of the dorade box completely, so that it can't be overwhelmed and allow water to enter the boat. Those shouldn't be needed often since most sea states won't bring green water that high up on the angled side of the hulls where these dorade boxes will be mounted. Still, if it gets really nasty, we can go down and close them off for the duration of the bad weather. I am familiar with the break open escape hatches, but we are going with Goiot's escape hatches. We want to be able to open them at a calm anchorage for some added ventilation, which is why we are mounting them as high as possible off the water. Yes, we are looking into adding recesses for the enclosures, but will have to see if we have the head room for it. We don't have the massively thick coach roof of those production (and heavy) catamarans. A Leopard 50 weighs nearly twice as much as our Solitaire 1520 (Leopard 45,000 lbs., S/V Lynx 25,000 lbs.). Still, we would like the recesses and will be seeing of it is possible to add them. I'll consider the yellow light idea :) As for the bug spray, we're not yet convinced on which way we will go to stop no-see-ums :(
@@SailingSVLynx Thanks so much for your reply, as for the dorade’s my main concern was that you had a way to “plug” them to manage heavy weather (as well as bugs). I guess my personal design preference is to minimise potential potential water ingress points and dorade’s and opening escape hatches are areas which need to be given a lot of thought. As for the coach/cockpit roof, I certainly was not suggesting you adopt the heavy weight design of Lagoon or Leopard, just when you mentioned clears ...... it seems many designers don’t seem too concerned how they ultimately stow. If you are designing a rain water catching channel/grab rail into the roof then the negative space on the underside of the roof could be exploited to house the rolled up clears along the margin without investing in making the entire roof 4” thick. Thanks again for taking the time to respond, these are just divergent thoughts generated by your videos please do not consider them as criticism.....there are many ways to skin a cat, excuse the pun, Cheers
I thought no such thing! I enjoy discussing ideas and love getting suggestions from you or any of our viewers! Keep it up! The negative space idea has some merit and I will look into that for the stowage of the enclosures.
I'll give you the short version... based off of tests we have read, 15% stronger than e-glass with 20% greater impact resistance. It is far less expensive than carbon fiber, and also less expensive than s-glass.
I wouldn't go with the dorade scoops. The ventilation you gain is not worth the risk of them getting overwhelmed by a big wave, or torn from the hull from such a wave. We almost never open our deck hatches for cabin ventilation. An opening portlight on the inside of the forward cabins brings in huge amounts of air as the wind tries to squeeze under the bridgedeck, which then flows out the open portlight in the aft cabin. Even with that airflow available, we're much more likely to turn on the 12v air conditioner in our cabin because the low humidity it provides can't be beat for a good night's sleep.
FYI, my 12v unit draws about 200ah a night. I have 600ah of lithium and 1600 watts of solar. Currently in Martinique, has been more cloudy than not today, it's 11am, and my battery is at 83%. I expect it to top before 1pm. I haven't run the generator to make power for about 10 weeks. It seems the only thing I use the generator for is running the dive compressor. Buy the 48v AC and forget the dorades. You'll be glad you did.
Our custom dorade boxes will be very low profile, and strong with continuous carbon fiber added. I have no fear of them being torn off. Now, will then leak water when swamped, that's another story, and one we will test before deciding on using them on the boat. As for opening a portlight while underway, there is far more chance of that taking on water in the cabin than a dorade box. Now, I'm sure you meant you were only using your portlights while at anchor, but that doesn't supply air underway. In our case, at anchor, air will not always flow between the forward cabins and the stern since there are privacy doors between cabins, which will often be in use since not all crew will be family. Now about using A/C. We will use the A/C at times, but not always. It really does draw a lot of power. Your example below is for one unit, so we will put four times that with four cabins, or 800ah at 12v (using your number). Remember, we expect to have 3 to 4 cabins in use, almost all the time. We do have lots of stored energy, in our case 352ah at 48v (usable power). That is equivalent to 1,408ah at 12v, so we have enough to run all four A/C units, but that will use a healthy chunk for a night of A/C, more than half our capacity.
diesel heater - less power draw and little fuel use (vlog onboard lifestyle abt 4 years ago - install of diesel heater ep 41/42/43/44 ) - plus your reverse cycle air con - Also DC to AC are about 90% efficient and 110v / 240 v a/c are cheaper as more built - same with fridge freezers which reminds me - one word eutectic - very good if excess solar or power available - poor mans eutectic is to keep fridge freezer full eg extra water bottles etc
Hey Jim. I've watched all of the Onboard Lifestyle vids as they came out. However, we decided against the diesel heater simply because it is yet another system to add when we will already have A/C units capable of heating the boat. As for little fuel use, little is still some and we prefer using power gained from solar and regen. Due to that, we won't have to run the diesel generator much of the time for A/C. And, as to the 90% efficient that's still a 10% loss or 2.5 kWh a night if we are using four cabins with A/C. I haven't ruled those A/C units out, but it all depends on the cost of the 48vdc units in comparison. We'll see.
How much, what size for ac, 12000 btu per ton of ac, a house is figured 1 ton per 400 sq FT... so a 2000 sq foot house would be a 5 ton unit... 60,000 btu.... I know people will disagree on this cause it all depends on insulation.... but those numbers are what has been used for years...
Our cabins are very small, about 12 cubic meters each. Conventional calculators show you would only need 4000 btu to cool that small area. The salon is about 40 cubic meters, and that would require around 13,000 btu. If we went with four 6000 btu A/C units, things should be fine. However, we might have to purchase 8,000 btu units if they don't make small enough ones in 48v units.
Really interesting and exciting build. Thanks for sharing. There is an a/c system that has been in Australia for a while now, I believe it to be imported from Europe, called "Frigomar". I’m not sure if it’s the brand you are referring to, and I can’t speak to its efficacy/durability, but it might be worth a gander. ruclips.net/video/kDXLiWgdw5A/видео.html 12:28 mark is where you’ll see an interview with the Aussie distributor. Best of luck with your build. Hope that helps!
A couple of things to mention that I noticed from other channels you might want to look into. 1) Instead of AC plus heating, try looking into a reversible heat pump to provide both. 2) Vent your cabin heating and cooling right in your birth area and then put a curtain around the birth so that you don't have to heat or cool the entire cabin while you sleep.
Good morning from Virginia. I can't help but be intrigued, by your penchant for customization, or even bespoke design and engineering, if you had thought of retooling some form of hydronic heating and cooling using deployable passive cooling pontoons? This seemed to hit the news feeds (well, those I pay attention to anyhow) about a year ago and I haven't since seen much development. Here are a couple of links to other channel's videos discussing their ideas: ruclips.net/video/pq8xDXkbXZs/видео.html, and ruclips.net/video/5zW9_ztTiw8/видео.html. I could see S/V Lynx at anchor with a few 1sqM floating passive radiators floating alongside her canoes feeding her P/S chilled water loops.
Uhh, the tropics have rain and lots of it. Uhh open deck hatches will pour rain in! The golden rule ,,keep water out of your boat! Uhh AC?? Look into zone AC. Central air seems problematic. Four small units instead of one big unit.
Which is another reason we eliminated most of the deck hatches and decided to add some dorade boxes for air flow while in wet conditions. As for the only two deck hatches we kept, we can add removable rain covers over those if we choose.
Kick up Rudders: I'm fairly certain that it's going to want to straighten the wheel and the rudder as it is kicking up because of the position of the universal joint piviot, so if your hard over watch your wrists.
I'm binge watching these episodes and loving every one of them, thanks for all of your detail.
We'll have to see once we sail. Glad you are enjoying the videos!
As always an extensive evaluation of the issues and good explanation of potential solutions.
Thanks, Anthony!
An enjoyable and informative video! The custom Dorade box shape is inspired; I see one small possible alteration, but I'm certain that you've already thought about it and will test it out, while you're fine tuning the design.
When you're researching the air conditioning and heating systems, did you consider the addition of a dehumidifier option? They take so much less energy and it's easier to deal with a dry heat (too many summers in the South Pacific can attest to this! 😁).
I know that you're planning for any and all circumstance, and was wondering if enough storage for all of the different wet/bad/foul weather garments has been planned into the design? With your goal of multiple circumnavigations, I would imagine that you would require at least four different one-piece garments, as well as separate tops and bottoms. Layering in colder and wet climates is essential and everything is bulky (I'm writing this as I'm sorting through five different HH coats and jackets and all of the thermo layer tops!).
Thank you so much for sharing and being calmly excited about this amazing project.
Hello Leon. I didn't go into detail on the dorade box, but it has three water/air separation chambers, so we hope it will work as expected, but we'll find out in testing. And yes, we are looking into dehumidifiers, in fact, there is a section about them on our website, here: www.svlynx.com/environment.html
As for wet foul weather gear and also our wetsuits, we have a compartment toward the stern, on the port side, that will have a hanging rack to handle these wet types of garments, it is just to the stern of the rear cabin, with a deck hatch for access, just in front of the sugar scoop. Some of the drier type winter garments will be stored in the cabins, sometimes in the large storage area under the forward beds.
I investigated several 48 volt AC/ heating systems, and spoke with several importers at the boat show last fall in MD and had no luck. Most were priced in the stratosphere. I think the best solution right now is from Mabru. I spoke with them yesterday and for a 50 ft. Cat they recommend one 17k BTU 230v and two 12k BTU 12v. The 12 v use about half the power of most other manufacturers units.
We looked into the Mabru units awhile back. They are the same basic technology that we are currently looking at, but these are in 48v units instead of 12v, which we prefer. Price will matter though, and I don't have the cost for these yet.
I was thinking of using integral 48v AC and then a hydronic hearing solution from hurricane that runs off Diesel- this would give me heat up north where 1. I need it and 2. I won’t be able to capture as much solar - 3. Give me hot water - all without adding hours to my Gen set. - admittedly I am looking at this for a monohull where weight is not as much of an issue.
Not a lot of information available on the Integral unit out there though so I can’t find if it has a reverse mode and will do heat. - I’m sure you know this but there is also a 48v anchor winch available- saving on wire size and cost for the long run forward. - Good luck and keep the videos coming….
I looked at Integral, but they were very expensive.
@@SailingSVLynx I look forward to hearing about the company you found.
Hello. Very informative. I watched your vlogs periodically but since the last two ones I will be a regular viewer. Great contributions you make. Thank you for that!
We're glad you are enjoying the vids!
You might wanna look at a water chiller system.. that can easily be zoned from a main chiller unit...
I looked them up awhile back, and decided against one for a performance cat our size. They are generally put on larger yachts. Here is one sites 'Cons' for a chiller system that kind of explains why we decided against them.
Cons:
Chillers are expensive.
Installation is complex.
There are more economical options for smaller yachts.
You guys should contact the crew of SV Clarity about your ac needs. They have a contact in florida that custom fabricates ac systems.
Which S/V Clarity? Are you talking about the O'Kellys, or someone else?
Just some thoughts;
Your dorade solution looks quite interesting, hopefully you will be designing a method of sealing/locking them down for really rough weather, a little concerned that to make such a low profile intake that performs well you may be a little more vulnerable to swamping in heavy weather (I'm sure you have thought of that). Not exactly sure which ventilation system the O'Kelly's referred to but there are other designs which use the centre forward wet lockers (opened hatches mainly for use when at anchor) as intakes and have a dorade baffle in the top cnr, their efficiency can be increased by using a fabric wind scoop common for increasing hatch ventilation ..... however this may not be so useful underway (I think Balance Catamarans have a similar design?).
I think some new designs are opting for sealed escape hatch that you break rather than open like a hatch ...... for me this would be preferable as the escape hatch is really only used in an emergency capsize and are when you are stuck in the hull (extremely unlikely) ...... so would rather a better permanent seal than manage the potential leak hatch seal.
With the soft clears/mesh my preference is to have specifically designed built-in recesses in the coach roof to accommodate the rolled up clears in situ with a nice tidy fabric cover (like Lepoard and some of the newer Lagoons?) this negates the need to install and strip the clears off all the time or leave them rolled up and hanging. If you also consider multi colour cabin lighting that can be switched to yellow, which is less inviting to insects than white light. Most people only seem to think of installing white and/or red, but yellow can help reduce the attractiveness of your abode to flying insects at night.
Be careful using bug spray, as some can melt plastics and have a detrimental effect on paint and finishes ...... as well as it is poison not just for them, not so good for you either.
Yes, my new dorade boxes will have a method of mounting, likely bolts that go through to a backing plate. That model in the video was just a preliminary version, I have some work to go before I would print the first version for testing. Something else I didn't show in the video is that n VERY rough weather, where the boat side might be overrun by green water, we will have a plug that may be inserted from the inside of the boat that closes off the intake of the dorade box completely, so that it can't be overwhelmed and allow water to enter the boat. Those shouldn't be needed often since most sea states won't bring green water that high up on the angled side of the hulls where these dorade boxes will be mounted. Still, if it gets really nasty, we can go down and close them off for the duration of the bad weather.
I am familiar with the break open escape hatches, but we are going with Goiot's escape hatches. We want to be able to open them at a calm anchorage for some added ventilation, which is why we are mounting them as high as possible off the water.
Yes, we are looking into adding recesses for the enclosures, but will have to see if we have the head room for it. We don't have the massively thick coach roof of those production (and heavy) catamarans. A Leopard 50 weighs nearly twice as much as our Solitaire 1520 (Leopard 45,000 lbs., S/V Lynx 25,000 lbs.). Still, we would like the recesses and will be seeing of it is possible to add them.
I'll consider the yellow light idea :) As for the bug spray, we're not yet convinced on which way we will go to stop no-see-ums :(
@@SailingSVLynx Thanks so much for your reply, as for the dorade’s my main concern was that you had a way to “plug” them to manage heavy weather (as well as bugs). I guess my personal design preference is to minimise potential potential water ingress points and dorade’s and opening escape hatches are areas which need to be given a lot of thought.
As for the coach/cockpit roof, I certainly was not suggesting you adopt the heavy weight design of Lagoon or Leopard, just when you mentioned clears ...... it seems many designers don’t seem too concerned how they ultimately stow. If you are designing a rain water catching channel/grab rail into the roof then the negative space on the underside of the roof could be exploited to house the rolled up clears along the margin without investing in making the entire roof 4” thick.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond, these are just divergent thoughts generated by your videos please do not consider them as criticism.....there are many ways to skin a cat, excuse the pun, Cheers
I thought no such thing! I enjoy discussing ideas and love getting suggestions from you or any of our viewers! Keep it up! The negative space idea has some merit and I will look into that for the stowage of the enclosures.
Please tell us more about the basalt fiber, and why you prefer it instead of other fibers?
I'll give you the short version... based off of tests we have read, 15% stronger than e-glass with 20% greater impact resistance. It is far less expensive than carbon fiber, and also less expensive than s-glass.
I wouldn't go with the dorade scoops. The ventilation you gain is not worth the risk of them getting overwhelmed by a big wave, or torn from the hull from such a wave. We almost never open our deck hatches for cabin ventilation. An opening portlight on the inside of the forward cabins brings in huge amounts of air as the wind tries to squeeze under the bridgedeck, which then flows out the open portlight in the aft cabin. Even with that airflow available, we're much more likely to turn on the 12v air conditioner in our cabin because the low humidity it provides can't be beat for a good night's sleep.
FYI, my 12v unit draws about 200ah a night. I have 600ah of lithium and 1600 watts of solar. Currently in Martinique, has been more cloudy than not today, it's 11am, and my battery is at 83%. I expect it to top before 1pm. I haven't run the generator to make power for about 10 weeks. It seems the only thing I use the generator for is running the dive compressor. Buy the 48v AC and forget the dorades. You'll be glad you did.
Our custom dorade boxes will be very low profile, and strong with continuous carbon fiber added. I have no fear of them being torn off. Now, will then leak water when swamped, that's another story, and one we will test before deciding on using them on the boat. As for opening a portlight while underway, there is far more chance of that taking on water in the cabin than a dorade box. Now, I'm sure you meant you were only using your portlights while at anchor, but that doesn't supply air underway. In our case, at anchor, air will not always flow between the forward cabins and the stern since there are privacy doors between cabins, which will often be in use since not all crew will be family.
Now about using A/C. We will use the A/C at times, but not always. It really does draw a lot of power. Your example below is for one unit, so we will put four times that with four cabins, or 800ah at 12v (using your number). Remember, we expect to have 3 to 4 cabins in use, almost all the time. We do have lots of stored energy, in our case 352ah at 48v (usable power). That is equivalent to 1,408ah at 12v, so we have enough to run all four A/C units, but that will use a healthy chunk for a night of A/C, more than half our capacity.
Well, I am FIRMLY in favor of crew comfort!
Our crewman puts in his two cents; strange how Brian is in favor of crew comfort ;)
Me too!
diesel heater - less power draw and little fuel use (vlog onboard lifestyle abt 4 years ago - install of diesel heater ep 41/42/43/44 ) - plus your reverse cycle air con - Also DC to AC are about 90% efficient and 110v / 240 v a/c are cheaper as more built - same with fridge freezers which reminds me - one word eutectic - very good if excess solar or power available - poor mans eutectic is to keep fridge freezer full eg extra water bottles etc
Hey Jim. I've watched all of the Onboard Lifestyle vids as they came out. However, we decided against the diesel heater simply because it is yet another system to add when we will already have A/C units capable of heating the boat. As for little fuel use, little is still some and we prefer using power gained from solar and regen. Due to that, we won't have to run the diesel generator much of the time for A/C. And, as to the 90% efficient that's still a 10% loss or 2.5 kWh a night if we are using four cabins with A/C. I haven't ruled those A/C units out, but it all depends on the cost of the 48vdc units in comparison. We'll see.
How much, what size for ac, 12000 btu per ton of ac, a house is figured 1 ton per 400 sq FT... so a 2000 sq foot house would be a 5 ton unit... 60,000 btu.... I know people will disagree on this cause it all depends on insulation.... but those numbers are what has been used for years...
Our cabins are very small, about 12 cubic meters each. Conventional calculators show you would only need 4000 btu to cool that small area. The salon is about 40 cubic meters, and that would require around 13,000 btu. If we went with four 6000 btu A/C units, things should be fine. However, we might have to purchase 8,000 btu units if they don't make small enough ones in 48v units.
Really interesting and exciting build. Thanks for sharing. There is an a/c system that has been in Australia for a while now, I believe it to be imported from Europe, called "Frigomar". I’m not sure if it’s the brand you are referring to, and I can’t speak to its efficacy/durability, but it might be worth a gander.
ruclips.net/video/kDXLiWgdw5A/видео.html 12:28 mark is where you’ll see an interview with the Aussie distributor.
Best of luck with your build. Hope that helps!
That is the company we mentioned.
A couple of things to mention that I noticed from other channels you might want to look into.
1) Instead of AC plus heating, try looking into a reversible heat pump to provide both.
2) Vent your cabin heating and cooling right in your birth area and then put a curtain around the birth so that you don't have to heat or cool the entire cabin while you sleep.
We are looking for a single A/C unit that does both. As for the curtain, that's a possibility we will look into. Thanks for the suggestions!
Good morning from Virginia. I can't help but be intrigued, by your penchant for customization, or even bespoke design and engineering, if you had thought of retooling some form of hydronic heating and cooling using deployable passive cooling pontoons? This seemed to hit the news feeds (well, those I pay attention to anyhow) about a year ago and I haven't since seen much development. Here are a couple of links to other channel's videos discussing their ideas: ruclips.net/video/pq8xDXkbXZs/видео.html, and ruclips.net/video/5zW9_ztTiw8/видео.html. I could see S/V Lynx at anchor with a few 1sqM floating passive radiators floating alongside her canoes feeding her P/S chilled water loops.
Thanks, Andrew, we'll check it out!
Subscrbed at "cold as prince Harrys todger."
Well... that described the problem, right? ;)
Made me laugh!
Uhh, the tropics have rain and lots of it. Uhh open deck hatches will pour rain in! The golden rule ,,keep water out of your boat! Uhh AC?? Look into zone AC. Central air seems problematic. Four small units instead of one big unit.
Which is another reason we eliminated most of the deck hatches and decided to add some dorade boxes for air flow while in wet conditions. As for the only two deck hatches we kept, we can add removable rain covers over those if we choose.