Flagship Air Conditioner

[Fishman_Tx]

Nope, military gear is usually grossly overengineered.

[Chief Engineer]

On the vessel that is my avatar we have 6 Flagship Units that cover varios zones of the ship. They are trouble free.

As far as cruise air units/reverse cycle.....I have installed an inline heater element like that which is used in trucks for keeping the blocks warm.....they raise the water temp enough to make the cruiseairs more efficient in colder water.

[jzone]

Originally Posted by bobfnbw

To my eye that looks exactly like a flagship unit rebranded....

Until recently, Ocean Breeze was the manufacturer of all Flagship units. If you look on the inside of any Flagship unit manufactured before 10/1/09, you will find an Ocean Breeze serial number. Flagship was a dealer for Ocean Breeze and is currently involved in legal actions for trying to pass the units off as manufactured by Flagship Marine.

[bobfnbw]

I went with 1 12K btu and 1 10K btu Marine Air Vector Turbo units.

Turbo Unit

Have not installed them yet. Sitting in my kitchen making my wife crazy....

Going to sell the 16k flagship unit here localy. will keep the march pump as a backup.

[Wyattearpy]

New to this post and have to say something. I work for the CCG and yes, our cutters are all supplied with 2 - 16.5K btu units. We have had a lot of problems with these. They work great when they work, and yes they are noisy, but in our circumstances, the noise factor is not an issue. Right now am having issues with the high pressure cut out, it is being a nuisance trip, so it looks to be a rip out and replace unit. And yes, the CG purchases not the lowest bid, but certainly not the highest either, but in this respect, I would have to think they got the lowest cost AC unit. As to heating the vessel, we wear full survival gear and the engines are powerful, creating much needed heat in the winter, so the heat generated by the little heater inside these units is really a moot point.

[svHyLyte]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

Some friends of ours purchased a Flagship 16K BTU Unit for their boat--a sister-ship to ours--about 4 years ago. It has proven very noisy and very problem-some. When running it vibrates their entire yacht and is so noisy that we can tell when they've turned the thing on from our boat, two slips away. Since they've owned it they've been through two compressors and several "squirrel cages". It is very awkward to extract from its mounting and the owner has vowed that the next time it has to come out, it will become an anchor. Worse, it really doesn't do a particularly good job cooling the yacht and has a tendancy to fail at the worst times, as it did while they were sitting out hurricane season in the Rio last year!

We have a now 14 year old KingAire that is so quite that one hears only the rush of air and that makes the yacht as cold as a meat locker if turned too low or will overheat the boat (in heating mode) if turned too high in the winter, even when temps are in the 30's.

FWIW...

Following up on my earlier post, after several more years of failures, expensive disappointments and leaks, our friends--now in Port of Spain, Trinidad--have removed their Flagship AC unit which has failed yet again and are relying on a temporary arrangement with a hatch mounted unit. They have removed the freon/oil and are saving the Flagship for a burial at sea, once they are in the deep, that they will video and post once they reach port.

For those of you contemplating a replacement AC unit, consider a KingAir. The company manufactures the cooling units used on refrigerated trailers in the trucking and shipping industry that must be reliable for days and weeks of continuous operation. The marine units are simply smaller versions of these units. Moreover, the Company is very responsive, and responsible, on the rare occassions when there is a problem/issue.

FWIW...

[mayball]

Just to perhaps wrap up this roast of Flagship, last year I had to repair a unit where the capillary tube had rubbed against the accumulator tank, making a hole in both of them. I was able to repair it by laying silver braze on the hole in the accumulator and slightly shortening the cap tube.

[DSDman]

So whats the verdict? I'm in the market for new units and all I have from this thread is don't buy flagship. Dometic the way to go? King air? I will be replacing two 6k btu units, a 9k unit and a 16.5 k unit. all wired 230 v currently have very old marine airrrrrr units that are failing. Any more info greatly appreciated.

[s/v Jedi]

I love CruisAir units and currently have a 240V 18,000 BTU unit that is the same size and uses less power than my previous CruisAir 16,000 BTU unit. Here too it is about price vs quality and prefer to pay a little more for gear that lasts twice as long or more.

[DSDman]

I completely agree with that sentiment. I'm sure technology had advanced much since my current units were new. R 22 refridgerant and all.







what was amazing to me is that these units still functioned somewhat. the compressor on this one is still good, the fan finally just quit!

[mayball]

From my experience, I would recommend Cruisair , and although Marineair is the same company, I think the Cruisair manuals are more detailed and useful. Most of the problems I have discovered on Cruisair have been small leaks normally at the access ports. I have found leaks on the reversing valves of two units. One could be stopped with some brazing on a pilot line. The other reversing valve would have needed to be replaced, but the owner decided he would never need the heat pump feature. I know this sounds like a lot or Cruisair problems, but it is only because there are a lot more Cruisairs out there. It looks to me like everybody uses the same reversing valve. I have never seen a King Air, except on trucks.

[DLaut]

OK, Necro-post revival here. My apologies in advance for any offense taken; but I wanted to add my 2-cents where it would be most easily found by people searching for reviews.

I recently purchased a 4 Ton chiller from them to replace a Webasto that had died, what I felt was, an early death. I looked all over the internet and literally stumbled upon Flagship Marine. Boy am I glad I did!

The space that was being vacated by the old Webasto is very cramped. Flagship worked with me to, basically make a custom version of their standard 4 ton chiller. Who else could I have gotten to do that? At the end of the day, their unit was no more expensive than a Webasto replacement (never going to happen), and less than the other alternatives.

I looked at the construction methods on their website and loved the way they have avoided large main circuit boards as control hubs for the chiller operation.

My boat was recently struck by lightning and it fried everything....everything except the Flagship chiller.

Since the Flagship chiller has no circuit boards with little ultra-low current handling transistor and op-amps (assuming all of the control and monitoring functions), there is really not much to burn up. Even if the controls had taken a direct hit, the individual parts are inexpensive and easily available. That is definitely NOT the case with the other manufacturers. Add to that, if I'm am cruising out of the country, I won't be at the mercy of some *special* service technician and a hideously expensive replacement main control board if something fails.

When we initially received the unit there was a gremlin that took a while to solve. Steve worked tirelessly to help us find the issue and covered everything under warranty. I could not be any happier with their performance.

There are a couple of negative reviews here, and on other sites. They are old. I am not familiar with their circumstances. I can only speak to my own experience, and it has been flawless!

I would buy from them all over again without ANY hesitation.

By the way, the new Flagship unit is definitely quieter than the old Webasto.