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

[skylark]

He built another boat that looked like a whale, and is now building another boat with a sail.

Apparently he was going to cross the Atlantic and Pacific with the whale, but had to stop due to health issues?

http://www.2hon5.ch/index-e.html

click on the boat links

[s/v Faith]

Update on the Tohatsu 6hp I purchased a couple months back;

The new Tohatsu is sitting out in my shop right now, the oil is still draining from the first oil change. It has taken me almost 2 months to get the 10 hours on the motor, since I usually only motor a few minutes at a time to get in and out of the slip.

I had some oil burning in the first couple hours, mostly noticed it on start up. I think it was just the rings seating. I did notice that it was worse for the first couple minutes after starting, which normally would indicate leaky valve stem seals... but I think it had more to do with the fact that the motor was stowed on it's side in the lazy rat. (yes I did only stow it on the side with the tiller handle as per the manual.)

The motor starts on the second pull every time, and has a short warm up time. I like the angle of pull through the original cut out in the cockpit and am no longer interested in the 'vertical pull' option. I think it would be awkward for me, and looking at the $100 + kit I notice that it does not have a pulley to change the direction of pull, but just a curved tube. I wonder what the friction would be like... but don't think the option is something I want anyway.

I opted for the 20" shaft (really more like 23"). My Yamaha had a 22" shaft, and did not cavitate even in much chop so I saw no reason to go longer. It is a close fit in the lazy-rat hatch anyway, so I would not want the 25" shaft for fear it would not fit (or at least be tougher to put in).


I do notice a bit more vibration then I did with my old motor (2 cyl, 2 stroke Yamaha 6). Not so much that it is distracting. A 1 cyl inboard vibrates much more then this outboard.

I do like that I can close the lazy-rat hatch and not have the motor choke out on it's exhaust like the 2 stroke did. I have not tried to do this for prolonged running so I don't know that it can't happen, just that it does not happen as quickly.

I did get the optional charging system. I have seen 2.5a on my Link battery monitor, but suspect that the charge rate would be higher if my solar panel were not keeping the battery nearly full all the time.

The zink has only spent about 3 weeks in the water total. I pull the motor and lay it in the lazy-rat when I am sailing every day or nearly so. I was disappointed to see that the zink was nearly 2/3 gone after a total of 3 weeks. I used to get 6 - 9 months on the Yamaha zink but it was at least 4x as large. I also don't know how hot this marina is, so that might have something to do with it.

I did buy the 'high thrust' prop (5.999 x 8). I changed it out pretty early in the break in period so I have to re-mount the stock (7.8 x 8) prop to do a real comparison. I bought the prop as much for it's big flat blades as anything, as the one I had on my Yamaha seemed to back better. I did notice some difference in the backing, but will do more testing later.

Let me see if I can post some pictures

[nowell]

Sorry for bumping up a pretty old thread, but I have a question that pertains to this. How good is the new technology with 4 horse engines now? I know that there is not much to gain, and im an avid believer in KISS. I read the entire thread, and was very educational, however, here is my specific question:

Why even go that high to begin with? (ie 5, 6 etc) Couldn't you use the smallest (say a 2.5 horse) engine if you were just using it for navigating marinas? Especially as the water tends to be alot calmer. I mean, if you were trying to keep weight savings/costs down, wouldn't that be the option because you could then use it on your tender also? A 35 lbs, 2.5 horse that runs towards 6k rpm, 4 stroke, pull start. Seems pretty simple to me, and would sip on gas.

Or am I just way off?

[AdriftAtSea]

As a general rule, going with the minimum horsepower for a sailboat auxiliary engine is a bad idea IMHO.  There is always the chance that you'll need to run the motor in heavy seas in an emergency... and if it is underpowered, you'll have a far lower safety margin than if you had a larger engine.

[nowell]

As a general rule, going with the minimum horsepower for a sailboat auxiliary engine is a bad idea IMHO.  There is always the chance that you'll need to run the motor in heavy seas in an emergency... and if it is underpowered, you'll have a far lower safety margin than if you had a larger engine.

That I can understand, but for the purists, that are talking about oars vs engine, etc, it sounds like most still have the 6 - 9.9 range, yet lament the fact that they even have it.

Again, just curious, I might be missing the intent via typed vs spoken word.

[s/v Faith]

Sorry for bumping up a pretty old thread, but I have a question that pertains to this. How good is the new technology with 4 horse engines now? I know that there is not much to gain, and im an avid believer in KISS. I read the entire thread, and was very educational, however, here is my specific question:

Why even go that high to begin with? (ie 5, 6 etc) Couldn't you use the smallest (say a 2.5 horse) engine if you were just using it for navigating marinas? Especially as the water tends to be alot calmer. I mean, if you were trying to keep weight savings/costs down, wouldn't that be the option because you could then use it on your tender also? A 35 lbs, 2.5 horse that runs towards 6k rpm, 4 stroke, pull start. Seems pretty simple to me, and would sip on gas.

Or am I just way off?

  No problem with the age of the thread, grog for using it rather then starting a new one. 


WRT the "new technology" I am afraid we are actually losing ground rather then gaining it.  The trend from 2 stroke to 4 stroke has produced some gains in economy, and they run cleaner but they cost more, require more maintenance, and are heavier.  Sadly, the boatUS magazine I got yesterday says that catalytic converters are going to be mandatory for inboards AND OUTBOARDS! by 2010.  The extra weight, heat, expense, and maintenance of this will be a real issue for small boat Sailors.   :P

My 6hp 4stroke is more efficient then my 6hp 2 stroke Yamaha, but is not IMHO as good of a motor.  I would like to find another Yamaha, but would not buy a 4 stroke again if I had it to do over.

  I differ with Dan in that I do think you should go with the smaller motor when deciding between more hp and less.  I do think you should not do this if you see your sails as the back up to the motor.  I have, and use a motor so I am not a 'purest'.  I do have much more faith in my sails then my motor.  Without getting into a debate about it I will say this;

  1.) Good seamanship trumps more HP every single time.  No contest.

  2.) The very best of motors, inboard, outboard, or warp drive will fail you exactly when you are relying on them the most.

[s/v Faith]

oops... I forgot to answer the original question...  :P

  Yes, I like a 4hp for a primary.  I like a 2 cyl, which is tougher to find in lower hp.  My Johnson 3 is a 2cyl, unfortunately it is a 15" shaft, which is a little short (but useable) for my well.  If I found a 4hp that I liked, I would consider it.  I have also moved Faith with a 2hp Johnson, but it had an even shorter shaft and the cav plate was just touching the water so I would not trust it for any distance.

[AdriftAtSea]

I differ with Dan in that I do think you should go with the smaller motor when deciding between more hp and less.  I do think you should not do this if you see your sails as the back up to the motor.  I have, and use a motor so I am not a 'purest'.  I do have much more faith in my sails then my motor.  Without getting into a debate about it I will say this;

1.) Good seamanship trumps more HP every single time.  No contest.

  2.) The very best of motors, inboard, outboard, or warp drive will fail you exactly when you are relying on them the most.

Having too small a motor can mean that it can't do its job when you might need it.  That said, I fully agree with your two points, and prefer to use sails to power... but then again, I didn't practice what I preach when it came to fitting out the Pretty Gee... She's got a 20 HP and they do offer a 50. :)  Thought the 50 HP would adversely affect her ability to sail well...so didn't get it.  The better a sailor you are, the less necessary the motor is IMHO.... but I can't do the Cape Cod Canal without one... they get awfully pissy if you try. :)

[Marc]

I will be buying an outboard some time this early winter,  probably the Tohatsu 8 or 9.8 4 stroke, I like the idea of remote but that all depends on dollars.  I have a Johnson 9.5 2 stroke but can't get the thing running. 

[Godot]

I've also been thinking about replacing my outboard.  Maybe.  If certain conditions are met.

As things stand now, my 8hp 2 stroke Evinrude Yachtwin works fine.  If the weather is warm.  Otherwise it is very (very, VERY) difficult to start.  A week or so ago the weather was somewhere in the upper forties, I was anchored out and tried to start the outboard so that I could get on with my day.  It didn't start.  I absolutely needed it because the weather was calm, I was 50 miles from home, nasty weather was on the way, and my vacation was coming to an end (sailors should never have schedules ... it just isn't natural).  I pulled the starter cord probably 100 times.  I cleaned, and later changed the plugs.  I even tried using starter fluid.  Nothing would start the beast.  Eventually the temperature made it into the fifties and then I was able to start and run it just fine.  The same thing happened at the beginning of my trip when I needed the motor to leave the marina.  Something is wrong.

So I need to do maintenance.  But then I think, maybe this is a good excuse to replace it with a cleaner, quieter, more fuel efficient 4-stroke. 

Advantage 1: less pollution!  Of course, this is mitigated by the fact that finances dictate I would likely sell the smelly thing to someone else who would then run the beast at least as much as I do.  Therefor, no real benefit.

Advantage 2: better fuel efficiency.  I'm not sure how much better, of course, but I know it is an improvement.  However, this is mitigated by the fact that I can buy a LOT of gas for the price of a new motor (even if I subtract whatever the repair cost would be for the old motor).  The most gas I've bought in a season is probably 18 gallons (and usually far less).  Even if I doubled my fuel economy and saved 9 gallons a year at $5/gallon, that is only $45/year.  It takes a long time to make that pay.

Advantage 3: slightly more convenient as I wouldn't have to mix oil with the gas.  But then, I do have to worry about oil changes.

Disadvantage 1: It's heavier. 

Disadvantage 2: It's expensive.

Disadvantage 3: It's harder and more expensive to work on (hearsay, but I believe it).

Disadvantage 4: Bad things happen by doing something as simple as laying it on the wrong side.

Ok.  I've talked myself out of it.  For now (I'm a fickle beast).  Perhaps if I do long range cruising some day out away from easy fuel sources I may change my mind.

Datapoint: I probably ended up motoring for 35-40 miles while pushing the boat (somewhat dirty bottom, I suspect) in the high four to low five knot range for most of the way.  I used somewhere around 8 gallons of gas giving me a fuel efficiency of something under 4.5 to 5 miles per gallon.  I know by slowing down the efficiency goes up. 

[CharlieJ]

Datapoint: I probably ended up motoring for 35-40 miles while pushing the boat (somewhat dirty bottom, I suspect) in the high four to low five knot range for most of the way.  I used somewhere around 8 gallons of gas giving me a fuel efficiency of something under 4.5 to 5 miles per gallon.  I know by slowing down the efficiency goes up. 

That's pretty poor fuel economy. We use an 8HP Yamaha 4 stroke on Tehani- 5300 pounds dry, we figure 7000+ loaded. We run the engine at high idle- just under the start setting and get 5.1, 5.2 . At that speed a THREE gallon tank lasts about 7 1/2 to 8 hours. If we drop the speed to about 4.6 or so, we get close to NINE hours out of that same tank.

So our mileage is running roughly 15 MPG. And we've checked this over some 2000 miles of ICW travel- 1 1/2 trips to Florida and back.

A second HUGE advantage is we can actually TALK to each other in the cockpit with the engine running at cruise- with the 2 stroke- either of the ones we had- you had TO YELL TO BE HEARD. It became nerve racking.  SO the 4 stroke is MUCH better in that regard.

In 3 1/2 years now of use, we have had absolutely ZERO troubles with the engine.

And I LOVE the Yamaha shift, etc being right on the handle- makes handling the engine when docking, etc, almost like an inboard.

Granted our engine lives in a well  so the access is much easier..

[nowell]

Firstly, I was in no way trying to offend anyone with the "purist" comment. Second I just came back from Aquila getting her ready for the trip up the ICW to my new home off Oyster Creek, so im in high spirits.

Anyway, back on topic, the thing that intrests me, is that I can see, on passage crossings, you would hardly, if ever use your engine (inboard or out). With solar/wind you batteries are pretty much set. I was more curious about the people like the Pardey's, do they just stay out of busy marinas? Take the north east area (lived and sailed the patomic/chesepeake) even up to the NY area? I understand seamanship can give you the ability to handle almost any situation, but, like cars, its the OTHER guy in the boat bearing down on you that you have to worry about.

I guess im wondering at what point you rationalize that you need something for the times when you seamanship can't influence the other idiot? And with technology you wouldn't need much I would think.

That and after lugging my 8 horse johnson out of storage, to the boat, on and off the transom mount, lets just say that small 2.5 - 3 4 horse coming in at 40 some odd pounds looks like the best thing since sliced bread!

[CharlieJ]

They often mention getting towed.

If we were sailing predominately offshore, I'd change out the 8 HP we have for something like a 4. The 8 takes about 1/2 hour to get in or out of the well, and you must use a wrench. Plus it really takes two people. A much smaller engine would be nice, for just getting in and out of harbor.

But for now we go places where we MUST motor to get there- sometimes for hours. For example, the ICW in eastern Texas and western Louisiana.  Not to mention the narrow channel, usually dead up wind we must run for 3 miles to get to open enough water to sail. So we'll keep the 8 for the time being. But on the other hand, we don't use it any more than we must.

[nowell]

They often mention getting towed.

Wouldn't that make the argument for a small outboard in favor of "cost effectiveness"? I guess if money was no object and you were dead set on no motor power what so ever, I could see that. I don't know. Having read a few articles by them, im just not buying some of these peoples arguments.

Anyway, great thread! Really enjoyable reading, and hearing everyones views!

[Marc]

So Charlie, do you think an 8hp would run my boat?

[CharlieJ]

I don't think it would take that much. I can't find info on the disp of the 242, but I know it isn't as heavy as Tehani.  A 6 HP would do the job. HOWEVER, for instance, the Yamaha 6 HP 4 stroke is the identical engine, with a different carb apparently. Same bore,stroke, disp, weight, etc. So if you are gonna put the weight back there, you might as well get the most HP you can for it.

Too bad it's so hard to find a new 2 stroke in the smaller engines isn't it?

There were really two reasons we bought the 8 HP. First, we were crusing and the engine crapped in southern Louisiana, 3 or 4 hundred miles away from home. We had already bought a used engine for the boat on the way over to Florida and decided we didn't want another used one. That Yamaha was pretty much the ONLY small engine immediately available in the entire southern half of the state- we could get most anything, IF we waited two weeks.. Which we couldn't do- so we bit the bullet and bought the Yamaha. We've never been sorry for the purchase.

The second reason was that we had crept into a port on two occasions with only one cylinder firing. Laura vehemently wanted a 2 cylinder engine.  And the 6/8 HP models were the smallest 2 cylinder engine we could get. Anything smaller in a 4 stroke was a single cylinder.

[AdriftAtSea]

Part of the problem with using a small outboard for sailboats is that most don't come with or have available to them a high-thrust prop.  They're designed for relatively light displacement skiffs, dinghies, etc.  That means that the prop that is available is often one that isn't going to be efficient for the engine, given the loads a sailboat puts on it. 

I'm actually a bit surprised that Tehani gets up to 5 knots with an 8 HP outboard.  What pitch prop are you using and what is the WOT RPM of the outboard?

[CharlieJ]

Standard pitch- and WOT??? Never run there- we run at a high idle, just UNDER the start setting. Probably around 1/4 to 1/3 throttle. Any more and the stern begins to squat.

On a long day's running, once in a while I open it up WOT, just to let it run that way for a few minutes, otherwise the engine is pretty much at idle.

I can move the boat with the 2.2 Merc we use on the dinghy. Takes a bit to get it going, but once moving, it does just fine.I have used that engine to move around in the marina. Sure wouldn't do against a strong wind though ;D

[s/v Faith]

FWIW,

  I believe Faith is slightly heavier then Tehani, and will motor over 5 knots with much less then full throttle with either the 2 stroke Yamaha 6hp, or the 6hp Tohatsu 4 stroke.  I do not recall the speed when motoring with the 3hp Johnson, but would not be surprised if it would make, if not approach 5knots.

  As many have stated, the average sailor overestimates the horse power required to move their sailboat.  Take a look at this thread;

Discussion of HP required to move sailboats....

[Captain Smollett]

More fuel for the fire...Gaelic Sea runs at 5 - 5.5 knots at about 2/3 throttle or less with an 8 HP outboard, assuming no major headwind.  That's 9000 lbs hull displacement, more in cruising trim.

I usually run 'er up to WOT to get her moving a bit quicker, then back the throttle down.  I've seen her actually speed up when going from WOT to 1/2-2/3 throttle as the stern lifts and the prop rpms better match speed through the water.

Stock prop for this engine, but it IS a "Sailmaster" outfitted from the factor specifically for use on a sailboat.  I'd guess they matched the prop to the use profile.  But I don't know this for sure.

I burn about a gallon per hour of gasoline (more than I'd like), but that's partly because she's almost always running a bit cold.  A mechanic removed the thermostat last year saying "better burn a bit more fuel than crack a head."  This model outboard is prone to sticky thermostats, and mine was, in fact stuck when he removed it.