Boats which are easy to singlehand with a walk around double bed

[Greg2]

Funnily enough I was wondering whether an Aquastar might fit the bill.

The one in your link has twin 210hp naturally aspirated diesels and whilst it will depend on how she is propped I wouldn’t have thought there would be a problem with river speeds. To give an indication our last boat had twin 300hp and whilst she did three to four knots at tickover she was absolutely fine on the river. We were Broads based so used her inland and at sea. We sometimes ran on one engine inland as the gearboxes were okay with lubrication, not really to bring the speed down but more to manage engine hours.

 

[Montemar]

As the OP seemed biased towards inland waterways big engines, especially old ones, may not get up to temperature and thus be smokey. Possibly a pair of AD31 or even a single that would allow 10 knots at sea to keep size down.

 

[Ferris]

Agreed, the preference is towards lower output engines for that and other reasons. There are however plenty of boats running large engines where we use the boat and there are larger lakes where one can open the engines up if required so its not a big concern.

Incidentally the Thornycroft T358's in that Aquastar seem to be based on the Cummins 6BT - which is of course a good thing - though they are listed as NA

 

[superheat6k]

Agreed, the preference is towards lower output engines for that and other reasons. There are however plenty of boats running large engines where we use the boat and there are larger lakes where one can open the engines up if required so its not a big concern.

Incidentally the Thornycroft T358's in that Aquastar seem to be based on the Cummins 6BT - which is of course a good thing - though they are listed as NA

My boat has Thornycroft T358 which are Cummins 6BT5.9M. The T stands for Turbo, and at 210HP the Turbo is essential so I suspect these are not naturally aspirated. Also there is no way the Aquastar would get on the plane without the turbos let alone 19 knots. My Corvette will manage 18 knots at WOT clean bum from those same engines and with almost 2 bar boost pressure.