The article leads with the statement that "TAB 2000 is the forerunner of what may be a new Brussels directive".

According to the PWVS (the German boat building council), TAB 2000 is a national German code for use with stationary installations in buildings and bears no reference to the marine industry.

They add that marine products need only be CE certified and must conform to the relevant technical files and standards.

We have enough rules and regulations to contend with in the industry without trying to further confuse the issues with irrelevant rumour.

Mr Lentge from HFL said that he could not start a 60,000 Btu chiller that had a starting current of168amps at 240 volt with a 12Kw generator.

There are, in fact, many generator brands on the market that would enable this unit to start, Kholer and Onan being two. We would find it very unusual for a compressor of that size to have such a large amp draw.

Taylor Made Environmental carries four different types of air-conditioning systems:

chilled water, split gas, selfcontained and modulating.

Each is specific to a certain application, which is led by customer preference, boat size, boat type, power limitations and budget.

All of the above applications are taken into account when a system is designed and tailored to the boat.

With continuing increases in cooling capacity requirements, Taylor Made firmly believe the future is with larger compressors making the use of the latest technology rather than installations with multiple smaller compressors.

There are less moving parts to fail, the installations are more compact and generally weigh less.

In these larger compressor installations, the problem of power load is solved through the use of an electronic device called a variable frequency drive.

The frequency drive is a "box" that is installed between the incoming power supply and the chiller. The drive can accept a 230v 50hz singlephase input and provides a three-phase output.

When the chiller is switched on, the drive ramps the frequency from 0 to 50hz or 60hz over whatever time period we require (typically 5-6seconds). This ramping of frequency allows the compressor to start slowly, rather than all at once and eliminates all in-rush current that in the past has caused problems with some installations.

TME try to encourage all boatbuilders that are using 3-tons (36000 Btu's) and over with a single-phase supply to use these drives.

Central or split type systems are used by many of the large OEM's with great success. Trained personnel must carry out installation and commissioning of split systems. We hold regular training schools and provide on site support from our dedicated engineering department and gas-handling courses are provided through a local college.

The big OEM's, Taylor Made Environmental and the leading generator suppliers work together to engineer solutions to the age-old problem of power requirements on the boats.

As for chilled water systems, they were originally developed from the superyacht market.

While installation is a fairly simple plumbing exercise, they are not necessarily the best option for smaller to medium craft. They only run on one cycle (cooling or heating) throughout the boat, they are heavy and a single pipe failure will stop the whole system.

Under-sizing of the system is another common mistake made on chilled water systems. Super and megayachts are worldwide vessels and must be capable of regulating all climates regardless of where they are built.

A 115 foot boat built in the Middle East would require 360,000 Btu's, including the fresh air make up - a UK built 105 foot boat that may cruise to the Gulf can require the same capacity. TME recently supplied a superyacht in Suez that has a capacity of a million Btu's!

We pride ourselves in our products and their application and it is for this reason that we have maintained our market share.

Yours faithfully, Trevor Goldsmith Taylor Made Environmental