Water cooled condensor theory

Hi All, Thanks in advance for any comments.

Ive been having a friendly discussion with a A/C tech who is much my senior regarding a pair of condensors we are replacing on board a large sailing yacht that i work on. The question is regarding the cooling water flow through a water cooled shell and tube condensor, in our case salt water cooled. The condesor is a 2 pass on the water ( throught the tubes) side unit with hot gass entering from the top (through the shell) and cooler liquid out of the bottom. My question is does the water initialy enter at the top to contact the hot gas first or through the bottom to further cool the colder liquid refrigerant in the condensor.

I belive the cold water should flow opisite to the direction of the gas/ liquid ie warm water before it exits contacts hottest gas and coldest water contacts coolest gas.

He has 25 yrs + experience hence the reason im asking you guys and trying not to be a young punk know it all.;)

thanks

water enters at liquid out leaves gas in

Opposite, always use counterflow and also to be sure you could remove the air out of the condenser.

http://www.engineersedge.com/heat_ex...nger_types.htm
http://www.engineersedge.com/heat_tr...ow_designs.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger

cold to cold and hot to hot is general practice thus the cooling water enters bottom and leaves at top so that it cools /sub cool (normally additional tubes provided in many condensers design)the liquid and cool the high temperature gas to condense. Thus top is wher high temperature gas enters and the cooling water leaves to cooling tower

Thanks very much guys,

I thought i was correct but as i said he has quite alot of experience and i didnt want to disagree with him.