Outboard motors; Cruising, dingy, tips, maint, & reviews

[AdriftAtSea]

CapnK has a very good suggestion.  It may be well worth considering, especially if you're planning on having a significant size house bank to begin with.  Recharging the batteries will be a challenge, but that could be done passively using a combination of wind, solar and water generation.

If the primary intention is to use the engine for docking situations, or other short-term situations, have you considered an electric motor?

Here is a very interesting thread of a fellow who did it (been a while since he's updated any info, however). He removed a venerable Perkins 4-108, replaced it with pancake electric motors. Neat stuff, and great food for thought.

Taking everything into consideration, if the above use is what you intend, then electric might be the way to go...

[Fortis]

CharlieJ, have you been talking to me son?

We needed to move a sailboat from one berth of the marina to another so a barge could get in and do piling maintenance. I had Miles (2yo) with me, so I sat him down in the cockpit and went to fire up the engine so we could put put across to the temp mooring. Miles knocked my hand away from the starter button and with a very serious expression on his face pointed to the mast and said "SAILBOAT!"

2 years old, and already a sail snob!

But yesterday he came fishing and crusing with us on an 80year old couta boat. He steered us out of the creek with a very good hand on the tiller (while standing on the bench!) and was a very deft hand all round (except the putt putt of the diesel made him sleepy, after a while)  Once he had his nap, it was time for a spot of fishing. three trolling lures hit the water, Miles's was the one that actually caught a fish...that was about an inch longer then he is tall!
The only crying of the day was that he was not allowed to use the knife for dispatching the fish (HIS fish!). he surervised as I filleted and cooked his catch for dinner and was very proud to be able to "feed mummy and daddy" with his skills.

I'm a very proud father....And have wandered off topic.




Alex.

[CharlieJ]

lol- That's simply great- and don't worry about being off topic. Things like that fit ANYWHERE. And he's obviously a very intelligent young man.

My youngest could steer a compass course when he was two. He HAD to use the compass because he wasn't tall enough to see over the cabin. ;D

He's now 44 and has a 10 year old- enjoy your youngster while you can- before you turn around twice he'll be graduating high school.

Seriously now and on topic-

I've been rereading the Pardey's book called "Self Sufficient Sailor" the last few nights- just finished a reread of Roth's "After 50,000 Miles".

In there there are a few small paragraphs about about engineless sailing that really caught my eye.

The first was about the late Peter Pye who sailed and old fashioned boat named Moonraker. He was on a dock at the San Diego Yacht club and was asked to move his boat to another dock across the harbor. Rather than power over, he and his wife made sail and sailed it over. When asked why he didn't just motor over he replied-

"Motoring on the ocean is simple, But if I don't practice sailing in close quarters, I might not be able to when I need to."

The other story was a story written by Jane DeRidder ( of Magic Dragon) for Pacific Yachting about voyaging in the Tuamotus

Nine yachts left Victoria that season, four of which were engineless. Four of the nine yachts were wrecked in the Tuamotus. Of the five that safely made the journey, four of them were the engineless yachts.

It ain't the engine- it's the people running the boat that make it safer. Perhaps voyaging with no or limited engine power makes those sailors more aware and more careful. I suspect so anyway.

Of course we have an engine and where we sail we need it often. these days most people do because marinas and yacht clubs aren't as user friendly toward sailing in and out as they were even 25 yeas ago. But we sure love being able to NOT use it when sailing is an option. That's a big part of the sport (addiction?) to us

[skylark]

I'm not sure I would recommend an outboard on your boat, but I can tell you a little about how it works on mine.  I have a Tanzer 28, a fin keel boat with a vertical transom.  It was easy to put a Fulton Four-stroke outboard bracket on it. I needed about 4" of wood block as a spacer between the outboard bracket and the transom when mounting the bracket.  I just epoxied two pieces of 2x6 together.  Lots of caulk, a few big bolts, a backing plate of plywood inside the boat and the deed was done.   

I use a Tohatsu 6hp four cycle single cylinder long shaft.  It has plenty of power.  I usually run just a little over idle speed.  I would recommend a four cycle for pushing a sailboat, the four cycles seem to work well with the non-planing slow motoring speed. I have the regular prop, not the thrust prop, it works fine.  It doesn't use much gas.

When running into the wind, like down a channel into a 6 foot chop or higher, the prop will catch some air.  This means you can't run at full throttle into the wind when you would really like to push it.  But if you put your sails up and have a little patience it does work.  I motor sail into the wind and try to get an angle into the wind to get a decent set of the sail. It helps.  Sometimes I kind of tack across the channel if it is not busy.  But even at low power running into the wind, the outboard has enough thrust to move the hull.

I pulled the old gas Volvo out and cleaned up the gunk out of the "motor" room, painted it and put some plywood floors in it and now I have a sail locker.  The boat is cleaner, smells better and I have more storage room than I need.  I could put a transverse bunk down there if I wanted to.  I left the old shaft in place thinking if it didn't work out I could put another motor in but no way am I letting one of those stinky oil burners into my living area.

The other benefit is the cost compared to repowering with an inboard.  I think I spent about 1400 on the motor and 150 on the bracket (I'm guessing, my memory has faded).  A replacement diesel would be approaching 10 grand.  And if my motor dies, it takes about 15 minutes to replace.

One down side is that to drop the outboard bracket, I have to lean over the transom and grab a handle and push the motor down.  Sometimes I just leave the motor down and sail with it in the motoring position, out of laziness.  But it is not too hard to pull it all the way up and take it out of the water leaving a clean hull to sail with.

I start my motor with a pull start.  I do not have a generator on the motor.  All my electric power comes from a solar panel.  I don't have a fridge or any power hog loads other than an tillerpilot and a ham radio. I have never been without power and I don't need any noisemakers to generate it.  A 9.9hp Yamaha would be nice but the Tohatsu is still light enough that I can lift it up (barely) and mount it when the boat is on the trailer.  I would not want a heavier motor.

[skylark]

[CharlieJ]

And here's the same setup on our boat. We can't easily get the motor out of the water- It's a Yamaha 8 HP and takes about 30 minutes to remove- plus it needs a wrench to remove the tiller from the motor. We LOVE the shifter right on the engine tiller by the way.

Could NOT use a bracket on the stern- way to hard to reach, plus the transom is just not suitable for it. So it'll live in the well, and we'll accept the small amount of drag.

We make hull speed at UNDER the start setting on the motor. At 5 knots it gives us about 8 hours out of a 3 gallon tank. That's from roughly 3200 miles of waterway running experience so far.

[skylark]

Here is the payoff:

[Frank]

now THAT is a lot of extra storage space

[Lynx]

It really depends on how good of sailor you are. If you encounted much counter wind or current, this is to small of motor for you. Put a bigger motor that you have in the boat and a bigger prop. You may be supprised at how well this handles and corrects any problems that you create.

[Captain Smollett]

I know I'm a bit late on this, but wanted to chime in since I think our boats are comparable in size.  We sail an Alberg 30 (30'3" LOA and 4.5 tons) with the inboard removed and stern hung outboard.  The outboard is an 8 HP Johnson Sailmaster UltraLongShaft.

I absolutely LOVE or LIKE the following about this arrangement:

• opening up the engine compartment - that's the battery bay now, and I will be adding some slide-out shelves over the batts for tools and spares.  Also pick up the storage capacity of the inboard tank
• built-in redundancy for dingy propulsion
• I get to lose a couple of underwater thru-hulls in this spring's refit
• The engine that came out was an A-4 - and (personal opinion) I am not a BIG fan of gasoline inboard propulsion, and thus would not want to replace with a rebuilt A-4; to replace this engine with a diesel would be quite expensive; operating with an outboard is a MUCH less expensive opotion, thus letting us get out, some anyway, sooner.
• It lets me, or forces me, to think 'sailboat first.' As you said, I like to move toward an engineless mindset.  I'd prefer an engineless boat, but having mechanical propulsion is one of the 'concession' I make to my wife (even though she has seen, numerous times, when the sails get us there that the engine has not).

Things I don't like or HATE about it:

• It really is a flat water solution; anything above about 4 footers and she tachs out.  Then again, if you are thinking "engineless" you are not relying on the ob in sea states like that, are you!
• It sure is uuuuugly
• Not the best for fore-aft trim; but the ob can be removed and stowed (I have not done this on my boat underway)
• With the small prop on an ob, compared to an ib, the acceleration is sluggish at best.  Heck, you are underpowered anyway at 8 HP pushing a four tonner.  It WILL get the boat moving, but it takes a while.  As in, you have to be CAREFUL in tight maneuvering - you don't stop-start with the engine like you do with a larger propped inboard.

I would like to make a quick observation about the electric solution.  It's a neat idea, but it takes an ENORMOUS amount of juice.  Look at the actual test results (A 35-37 footer, iirc).  To me, it's just not practical:

• enormous wiring, though short runs, to handle the current loads
• 48V or 60V system with sufficient capacity to actually be useful works out to 8 or ten Group 27 wet cells. How heavy is that inboard you are removing?
• Gen-Set + fuel for gen-set; ooops, there goes the weight/space savings of getting rid of the inboard
• extremely limited use potential; don't forget Peukert's Law when doing those amp-hour calcs, and keep in mind you'll be drawing off those batts to the tune of 30-100 amps.  In other words, you won't get anything near the 'advertised' capacity per battery (note in the tests, he didn't), since the test current draw is typically 5 amps.

So, in my mind it loses in the old engineering cost-benefit analysis, especially considering your stated use profile: an overly complicated, heavy, multicomponent system for something you plan to use a few minutes at a time on each end of your trip.  Sorry to be the nay-sayer on this one, but that's my read.

Given that, doesn't the simplicity of an outboard sound MUCH better?

[CapnK]

John at Hazzards Marine showed me a honkin' BIG ole Minn Kota thruster (OK, trolling motor :) ) that they've mounted on the stern of a single-screw trawler. I'll see if I can get some pics for y'all. If it's size is any indication, it might be well suited for basic use as a few-minute auxiliary, and it is submersible, so it could be mounted to a contraption that was dropped into the water when needed.

Looked at websites, and found out it's either the 80lb thrust (24V) model, or the 101lb thrust (36V) model. I do not know how that translates into "oomph" for pushing a boat, but the cost for the 80lb'er from BassPro is US$829, the 101lb'er is US$929, so price-wise (even with a set of batteries) they are affordable in some sense, or at least cheaper than a brand-new outboard of greater than 6-8hp...

FWIW, random thoughts - I'm an 'outboard-in-a-well'er', and I like it much more than my former diesel inboard (that was in a different boat). I've got 6 horses back there, a 4 stroke Merc (Tohatsu). The fuel burn is minimal (.25gal/hour), and she'll push the boat at hull speed in wind up to about 15-18, I'd guesstimate. Over that, she takes a hit, and when it gets to 35 or so, the wind begins to overpower the o/b if going straight to windward.

I wish I could put a Seagull-sized fan on a smaller motor, trading speed for pure torque, while saving weight. I've never quite ruled out getting a 'Gull, eventually...

[s/v Faith]

Wow,

  I know I am coming to this discussion late (if you are even still reading this thread).

I like what Charlie brought to the table with this idea;

I have a friend on the east coast who is seriously contemplating removing the inboard from an Alberg 30 and building a well in the lazerette for an OB.

  I have an outboard in a well, and find it to be an ideal setup.  The prop stays in the water, the motor is easy to remove, work on, and replace if necessary.

  Don't know if this would work on your boat, but if there is an overhang and a lazaratte you might take a look at James Baldwin's "The Inside Outboard" Where he converted an 28' inboard powered boat to an outboard in a well.

[Leroy - Gulf 29]

CaptnK - I have a 6 hp Merc on the Clipper.  I swapped to a high thrust prop and made a world of difference.  Your boat is a bit larger than that one is (23', 3,000#), but if you haven't tried it, its worth a shot.  FWIW - I probably won't be getting that boat wet this year, so if you would like, I could jerk the prop and send it to you to try before you dumped $80+ into one

[CapnK]

Kewl - Thanks for the offer, Leroy! I just might take you up on that. :) If I do, I'll send you a PM or an email. And some 6 pack money fer yer offer and trouble.  ;D

[Gus]

And here's the same setup on our boat. We can't easily get the motor out of the water- It's a Yamaha 8 HP and takes about 30 minutes to remove- plus it needs a wrench to remove the tiller from the motor. We LOVE the shifter right on the engine tiller by the way.

Could NOT use a bracket on the stern- way to hard to reach, plus the transom is just not suitable for it. So it'll live in the well, and we'll accept the small amount of drag.

We make hull speed at UNDER the start setting on the motor. At 5 knots it gives us about 8 hours out of a 3 gallon tank. That's from roughly 3200 miles of waterway running experience so far.

Very cool photo Charlie! I want to install a tiller pilot in my boat, and I have the same cockpit configuration as Tehani (I didn't knew if it'll be ok to drill a hole in the cockpit locker lid) :)

Gus

[Tim]

We make hull speed at UNDER the start setting on the motor. At 5 knots it gives us about 8 hours out of a 3 gallon tank. That's from roughly 3200 miles of waterway running experience so far.

So Charlie, (or anyone for that matter) I am going to have to get a new motor for the Ariel, and since a shift in the cockpit would be wonderful, I am looking at the Yamahas. I excpect to be dealing with some fairly serious currents up north so I am leaning towards the 9.9 as opposed to the 8. The weight difference is about 10 lbs. (91 for the 9.9) Am I being foolish? (wouldn't be the first time) ;D

[Captain Smollett]

I excpect to be dealing with some fairly serious currents up north so I am leaning towards the 9.9 as opposed to the 8. The weight difference is about 10 lbs. (91 for the 9.9) Am I being foolish? (wouldn't be the first time) ;D

Hull speed through the water is hull speed through the water - how does the current effect what size OB you get? Assuming the 8 HP will push your boat at hull speed, the 9.9 won't do any better than that (assuming also you won't plane your Ariel with a small outboard).

Just curious, because I see this kind of statement all the time.

[CharlieJ]

Two replies here- first Gus.

Under that hole in the cockpit seat is a block thick enough so the little sleeve for the tiller pilot doesn't come through to LEAVE a hole. Then the sleeve is epoxied in place. So it can't leak

Smollet- get the 8- we've run agains some pretty  stiff currents and NEVER  used more than half throttle

Here's a point I'd like to make- I just last week  did a delivery of a damaged 34 foot trimaran- 160 miles using a heavy aluminum  flats boat  ( tunnel hull) as a push boat, strapped to the stern of the tri, like a tug would be. Over the majority of the trip, we ran about 5 to 5.5  mph pushing BOTH boats with a Honda 10 HP, running at 3/4 throttle. We used the big motor, a 140 hp, when we were passing through bridges and through locks, because we had better control of it, via the push boat steering. In the first shot the big motor is running also as we had just passed under the Galveston Causeway. In the second we just have the Honda going, steering from the tri. We previously ripped up the prop on the other small engine so it was out of commission.

But the point is that that 10 hp pushed a WHOLE lotta rig quite nicely, with wind, against wind, with current,, against current.

We  put the 8 HP on Tehani for two reasons- It was the smallest two cylinder available- we did NOT want a single cylinder engine but would have gotten a 6 HP if one had been made in 2 cylinders.  And it was available with the shifter on the engine tiller, which makes it REALLY nice. Well, three reasons really- we were broke down in southern Louisiana and that was THE only reasonable engine we could get with every thing we wanted ;D

[Tim]

Charlie, It was I who asked about the Yamaha motor, it was Captain Smollet who questioned my sanity ;)

I just wasn't sure about the displacement difference between our two boats, and whether there would be any advantage in some of the narrow straits to having a little more power.

I realize I am not going to get her past hull speed but wasn't sure if cross currents could make a difference.

I have seen underpowered boats being pushed around up there.

Tim

[Gus]

Thanks for the tip on the block under the seat! I could have never though of that myself.

My boat came with a 9.9 Mercury, and it is waaaaaaaaay over kill. It weights a ton (like 85 pounds), and I usually don't run it at full throttle. I like the alternator in the motor, so if I ever get another motor it'll have an alternator. I like the shifter in the tiller too, but I'm looking to get cockpit controls since my outboard sits a bit too far out the transom.

edit: punctuation