Marine keel cooler

Claim 1

A marine keel cooler for cooling an operationally heated coolant of a marine vessel cooling jacket, having oppositely disposed cool input and hot output ends, comprising: (a) a pair of parallel header means mounted transversely with respect to the keel and longitudinally spaced apart fore and aft on the exterior surface of the marine vessel bottom, and respectively connected through said bottom to said cool input and hot output ends of said cooling jacket, each of said header means having fore and aft edges adjacent said marine vessel bottom and a downwardly curved outer surface between said edges, for producing, as said vessel moves through the sea water in which it floats, a smooth laminar flow of said sea water over the outer surface of said header means; and (b) a plurality of straight parallel coolant tube means spaced transversely apart from one another and from said vessel bottom having oppositely disposed ends, each of said tube means having upper rounded and lower rounded parallel sides and substantially planar parallel elongated right and left sides, defining a tube cross-section of a generally elongated oval shape, said oppositely disposed ends of said tube means being connected between said pair of header means to define a closed path for heated coolant through said tubes means, header means and said cooling jacket, said upper rounded and lower rounded parallel sides of adjacent tube means eliminating areas of vena contracta between said spaced apart tube means and said elongated right and left sides of adjacent tube means defining therebetween a channel through which sea water flows with increased velocity by the venturi effect for effecting maximum heat transfer from said operationally heated coolant circulated through said header and tube means, and said curved outer surface of said forward header means acting to direct sea water upwardly and obliquely through said channels between said tube means as the vessel moves forward through the sea water.