Aux outboard advice

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stigger

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Hi,

I'm after some advice in terms of an aux motor. The boat is about 1970, the engine 1979. Whilst the engine starts first time it's new to me and I know nothing of it's reliability. As such I want to ensure I have a back up whilst on the water.

The stern of the boat is concave and angled so fitting a aux mount to the transom doesn't look like an easy task. There is only 8 inches either side of the engine on the main transom mount and the steering/cabling will make mounting there awkward.

In terms of long or short shaft?

I was thinking of a 3.3HP or similar.

Any thoughts? Advice welcomed.

Thanks as always.

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Hello,

I am familiar with you concerns and hope that I can give you some advice.

Before you embark on adding an emergency outboard my advice would be that you should invest more time on the engine that is already insitu. A good reliable single engine is a much better bet than two 'hope thet get me out of here' suspect motors,

Best of luck and happy boating
 
Apologies, the photos didn't seem to embed in the post. It's a 1970ish Galstron Skiflite v142 hence the concave stern. 14ft.
 
A 3.3 HP outboard can push a remarkably large boat at a few knots or so in calm water with no current or wind but you don't often get that in this country, plus you have to add the fact that the o/b doesn't have the guts to push the boat up or through a wave and you find that they often aren't that effective at all. And that's before you have to push against a 4 knot current in a boat capable of 5 knots on a good day. The biggest problem with an o/b as an aux is often mounting it somewhere that won't have the prop coming out of the water for at least half the time in any kind of sea - that's why quiet a few yachts mount then in wells in the cockpit. And then you need to be able to steer the boat and that's assuming it started anyway after not being used for months and just stuck in a locker or on a transom, etc. Maybe OK for canals and Norfolk Broads but I would think very carefully about an aux o/b if you are coastal. I'm with Red on this - sort the main engine until you believe it is reliable first - then you can worry about another set of all those problems if you want to have an aux.
 
Thanks guys... My posts are being delayed because they seem to have to be approved by a mod before posting.

I hear what you're saying about the main engine but surely I'm never going to know if it's reliable, even with a complete rebuild, untill I'm in the water by which point it's too late to find out that it has gremlins regardless of servicing/components.

Having a small emergency backup seemed the logical thing to do to me.
 
stigger said:
Having a small emergency backup seemed the logical thing to do to me.
Click to expand...

Seems sensible to me, too. Of course either of them might fail, but the chances of both doing so at once must be pretty small. Lots of the small scruffy old motorboats at our yard clearly agree, as they have a 3 or 4hp engine on a lifting bracket next to the main one.

I was looking down on Brixham marina the other week, and every single open outboard-engined boat I could see either had twin engines or a small backup. Maybe a certain West Country independent streak?

Bit hard to advise on fitting without the pics of the boat though. If you're having trouble with the built-in attachment system, open a Photobucket account and link from there instead. You'll need to do that in the end anyway when you run out of attachment space here, they don't give you much.

Pete
 
If the stern is curved, get a fixed bracket made up - OR just put some Stainless steel of unequal length, with some ply between the "Arms" to hold the lifting bracket?

On a small boat like that I agree 4hp is sufficient, but I'd go for a sailpower/saildrive type motor (often called high thrust) which gives more thrust, but a lower potential top speed. It's achieved with a different gear case, and lower pitch, but much larger diameter prop.

See here for example:- http://yamahaoutboards.com/outboards/High-Thrust/overview although they don't seem to do the 5hp any more sadly

Or here:- http://www.tohatsu.com/outboards/6_4st.html - they do a sail model which has a different prop and a charging circuit - which would be handy if the reason you can't get going is a flat battery as well, as of course you can pull start the small engine.

A STANDARD 3.3 hp motor is designed to push something incredibly light (rubber dinghy for eg) to sort of plane 1 up. You don't want that, you want to push something reasonably heavy, relatively slowly, against wind and tide - or more realistically, to hold station or make tide work for you to get to a point of safety (or even just to a point of "less immediate harm"....
 
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My first boat was an 18ft cuddy with a very old Mariner 115hp 2 stroke that, like you, I had no idea as to its reliability. I was doing coastal runs so fitted a fold down aux bracket that is fairly standard and you'll find in most chandlers. A couple of things however, I'd put a 2 stroke 5hp on the back rather than a 4 stroke due to the weight in fact whilst not ideal I'd store it up the bow and only out on the bracket unless needed to keep the boat from being too heavy at the stern. The reality is that it will push you home on a calm day (assuming you have enough petrol) but on a choppy day the engine will be coming in and partly out of the water with the waves so it will keep you from the rocks but prob not take you all the way home.
Enjoy the boat and take precautions like flares, VHF etc but go and enjoy and in reality you'll not every be too far away from help as an absolute backup. Lovely wee boat.
 
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