I had a 25' Sea Ray Sundancer that I ordered with cockpit heat from the factory. It was basically like the heating system in your car, circulating hot water from the engine, only the cooling system for the engine used raw water from the lake and the thermostat was around 160*.
It worked OK to take the chill off in the spring and fall, as long as the canvas was up during cruising. Of course, they don't advise running any boat with the canvas on because of the potential for fumes to enter the boat. One problem is that the heater didn't put out much heat when running slow, since not much water was circulating.
That being said, I liked having that extra bit of warmth near the helm. The downside was that the heater core was buried in the hull, with access through the mid cabin. Part of the wall covering had to be removed and the opening to service the core was very difficult to work in. When would it need service? When it rotted through and leaked, silently filling the mid cabin and forward living space with water. I went through that three times. The first time was when the boat was a couple of years old. There had been a problem with bad cores, and Sea Ray replaced it. The second time was when the first repairman got the screws for the wall covering mixed up and a long screw was driven into one of the hoses connected to the core. The dealer repaired that and took care of sucking the water out and cleaning the carpets and mattresses. The next failure was due to freeze damage when the marina did not drain and blow out the core when doing winter service. At that point, I removed the core and bypassed the hoses. No more heat. I contacted the company that made the core and they sent me a brand new one. I never used it. I just didn't want to take the chance of flooding again. I sold the boat a couple of years ago, but I still have the new heater core.
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