Boats with old(ish) engines

[john_morris_uk]

Well said. I have read engined my boat twice in the 30 odd years I have had it. If you are a long term owner the measure is the value you get out of it not the cost in relation to market value.

I agree.

Dylan's a really nice guy, but making broad reaching and general conclusions about the economics of boat engine replacement referring to the blessed slug doesn't make complete sense.

It also depends on who fits it! I have always fitted the engines myself - and thereby saved several thousand pounds. The engine in our SCOD was a Yanmar 1GM10 which I bought brand new for about £1200 (ok it was a few years ago and prices have gone up...)

Even when I bought brand new sails and added up all the cost of the rigging and repairs I still got my money back from the whole deal. Of course I didn't get my labour or time back, but I enjoyed doing that bit as well, and also enjoyed the satisfaction of sailing a boat I'd rebuilt and re-engined.

What value do I ascribe to the several family holidays we had 'camping' on the old lady? Cost and value is a little more complex than adding up profit and loss in boating. If it was any other way, none of us would be boat owners and very few or none of us would go sailing...

So to the OP - don't let an old engine put you off. It will help if you are handy at DIY and can take the old one out and fit the new one yourself, but who said owning a boat was cheap? Just think of the pleasure from the time on the water - but don't add up sailing hours and divide into pounds spent!!

 

[wotayottie]

You mean ヤンマー株式会社
Yanmar is a very nice diesel - not everyone knows that Yanmar was the inventor of such engine along with Mr Diesel
But they were not designed for sea. Agricultural originally. Try to start Yanmar by hand, you will find it was not a priority in design

I wqould no more expect to start my boat engine by hand than my car engine.

 

[cliff]

But if you had a well set up charging system as snooks suggested you would not end up with a flat battery.

I do have a pretty good charging regime however when SHMO does not obey and insists on leaving all teh lights on, running the microwave, hair dryer, kettle, toaster etc thensitting half the night watching the TV (again with half the lights on) and eventually goes to bed leaving the eber running not to mention lights in the head and gally etc the batteries tend to get stuffed. It is even worse when #1 sprog is onboard with her curling irons, straighteners, hair dryer etc - I have lost count of the number of time I have told them to make sure the battery selector is on "II" not "both" - and NO I am not going down the route of VSRs - I have enough gizmos on board without adding anything else to go wrong - at least with the manual selection I am in control - not some fancy VSR or piece of silicon.
BTW, I tend to actually SAIL my boat rather than motor or even motor sail so engine running is to get in and out of the marina and occassionally a little run to recharge the batteries.

 

[Tranona]

I do have a pretty good charging regime however when SHMO does not obey and insists on leaving all teh lights on, running the microwave, hair dryer, kettle, toaster etc thensitting half the night watching the TV (again with half the lights on) and eventually goes to bed leaving the eber running not to mention lights in the head and gally etc the batteries tend to get stuffed. It is even worse when #1 sprog is onboard with her curling irons, straighteners, hair dryer etc - I have lost count of the number of time I have told them to make sure the battery selector is on "II" not "both" - and NO I am not going down the route of VSRs - I have enough gizmos on board without adding anything else to go wrong - at least with the manual selection I am in control - not some fancy VSR or piece of silicon.
BTW, I tend to actually SAIL my boat rather than motor or even motor sail so engine running is to get in and out of the marina and occassionally a little run to recharge the batteries.

Well if you want to make life difficult for yourself by not taking advantage of devices that will solve your problem then not much one can do to help. A VSR will not go wrong whereas it is clear that your self managed system does if you end up with flat batteries.

BTW hope you are now feeling superior to all others with the confession in the last sentence.

 

[Nicholas123]

Well if you want to make life difficult for yourself by not taking advantage of devices that will solve your problem then not much one can do to help. A VSR will not go wrong whereas it is clear that your self managed system does if you end up with flat batteries.

BTW hope you are now feeling superior to all others with the confession in the last sentence.

Getting hold of the money to buy these thousand & one gadgets makes life more difficult for some of us Tranona,it don't grow on trees do it?

Keep it simple the less to go wrong the merrier it seems to me.

 

[dylanwinter]

bless you

I agree.

Dylan's a really nice guy, but making broad reaching and general conclusions about the economics of boat engine replacement referring to the blessed slug doesn't make complete sense.

It also depends on who fits it! I have always fitted the engines myself - and thereby saved several thousand pounds. The engine in our SCOD was a Yanmar 1GM10 which I bought brand new for about £1200 (ok it was a few years ago and prices have gone up...)

Even when I bought brand new sails and added up all the cost of the rigging and repairs I still got my money back from the whole deal. Of course I didn't get my labour or time back, but I enjoyed doing that bit as well, and also enjoyed the satisfaction of sailing a boat I'd rebuilt and re-engined.

What value do I ascribe to the several family holidays we had 'camping' on the old lady? Cost and value is a little more complex than adding up profit and loss in boating. If it was any other way, none of us would be boat owners and very few or none of us would go sailing...

So to the OP - don't let an old engine put you off. It will help if you are handy at DIY and can take the old one out and fit the new one yourself, but who said owning a boat was cheap? Just think of the pleasure from the time on the water - but don't add up sailing hours and divide into pounds spent!!

however, I really want to avoid other people putting themselves through the sort of horrible aggravation I had from the slug engine - which lasted two summers before I fanally gave up after some of the most miserable moments of my brief happy life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbCJ_tKaDng

it cost me around £1500

and I lost ten weeks of good sailing weather

and even then I had to pull the plug on the slug

there are not many pro engineers who are prepared to mess with old engines in small boats

they usually put in some pretty large estimates because they would rather not do the work

so if you are looking for budget sailing

avoid diesel inboards

simple

one of the snags on here is that lots of us have different amounts of money

if a £4,000 bill is peanuts

or you are happy to spend £250 on a pair of leather wellies then buy a boat with a diesel inboard

if on the other hand you are the sort of bloke who carefully budgets what they spend on their boat then.....

an outboard allows you tighter control over your costs

Dylan

 

[Tranona]

Your reasoning is correct in your situation. If you are boating on a small budget then diesels are probably not for you. However not everybody is in that situation and once you are considering a boat over 25 ft or so then a diesel becomes almost a necessity. The dilemma for many people is that they may be able to afford £Xk for a 30 year old boat so do they spend the full X on a boat with an old engine and run the risk of then spending a further £5k on a new engine or do they scale back their expectations and buy a smaller or less attractive boat with enough spare to replace the engine.

Of course the ideal is to try and find one where the engine has recently been replaced (and the job done properly) but it is inevitable that many boats on the market have engines nearing their end - inevitable really as this is often the reason for selling as it passes the risk onto somebody else.

In the end there is no simple answer. You have to look at the individual boat, how it meets your requirements and the cost if any of bringing it up to the spec you want. Some people are quite happy keeping old engines running, others value the benefits of a newer reliable engine. I have done both, but given the choice a newer engine wins hands down.

 

[Nicholas123]

however, I really want to avoid other people putting themselves through the sort of horrible aggravation I had from the slug engine - which lasted two summers before I fanally gave up after some of the most miserable moments of my brief happy life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbCJ_tKaDng

it cost me around £1500

and I lost ten weeks of good sailing weather

and even then I had to pull the plug on the slug

there are not many pro engineers who are prepared to mess with old engines in small boats

they usually put in some pretty large estimates because they would rather not do the work

so if you are looking for budget sailing

avoid diesel inboards

simple

one of the snags on here is that lots of us have different amounts of money

if a £4,000 bill is peanuts

or you are happy to spend £250 on a pair of leather wellies then buy a boat with a diesel inboard

if on the other hand you are the sort of bloke who carefully budgets what they spend on their boat then.....

an outboard allows you tighter control over your costs

Dylan

Lovely film Dylan & a bloody good argument for small boats!

 

[prv]

when SHMO does not obey and insists on leaving all teh lights on, running the microwave, hair dryer, kettle, toaster etc thensitting half the night watching the TV (again with half the lights on) and eventually goes to bed leaving the eber running not to mention lights in the head and gally etc the batteries tend to get stuffed. It is even worse when #1 sprog is onboard with her curling irons, straighteners, hair dryer etc - I have lost count of the number of time I have told them to make sure the battery selector is on "II" not "both"

at least with the manual selection I am in control

You quite clearly aren't!

Pete

 

[john_morris_uk]

however, I really want to avoid other people putting themselves through the sort of horrible aggravation I had from the slug engine - which lasted two summers before I fanally gave up after some of the most miserable moments of my brief happy life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbCJ_tKaDng

it cost me around £1500

and I lost ten weeks of good sailing weather

and even then I had to pull the plug on the slug

there are not many pro engineers who are prepared to mess with old engines in small boats

they usually put in some pretty large estimates because they would rather not do the work

so if you are looking for budget sailing

avoid diesel inboards

simple

one of the snags on here is that lots of us have different amounts of money

if a £4,000 bill is peanuts

or you are happy to spend £250 on a pair of leather wellies then buy a boat with a diesel inboard

if on the other hand you are the sort of bloke who carefully budgets what they spend on their boat then.....

an outboard allows you tighter control over your costs

Dylan

I.m not going to argue with you Dylan. There are places for both sorts of boats and I agree that if you aren't handy with a spanner then the costs can escalate out of all proportion to the value of the boat.

However we have a 39' boat and which more or less means it has to have a diesel inboard... I thought I'd bought carefully; after all the engine hours were less than 700 from when the engine was replaced new. What I hadn't bargained for was the less than perfect exhaust set up which meant that seawater got into the engine and severely damaged it. The only reason the finances add up now is that I did all the work and the spares for the rebuild came to about £700. (That's new valves, new pistons, rings etc hone the bores new gaskets.) I made a mistake in not replacing some tiny 'O' rings when I had it stripped down which were a pain to replace later and meant I had an oil leak, but now I've done that job as well it is a very reliable diesel 40 hp engine...

So its horses for courses and if you are paying a diesel engineer to sort things out then the budget goes through the proverbial before you know it. I would argue that doesn't mean that diesel engines are inherently a bad thing. Outboards have their problems as well.

Its interesting how mind set differs. To me one of the essential characteristics of a 'proper yacht' is having an inboard diesel engine. But I don't do the sort of cruising that you do so its not comparing like with like.

 

[robertt]

One of my reasons for thinking I "needed" a diesel engine is the lack of availability of petrol on the West Coast. I have nothing against an outboard and I'm sure maintenance would be easier, but I want to have a good cruising range which to me means a big fuel tank and somewhere to refill it, within my planned cruising area.

 

[Sybarite]

That is just a myth as is the suggestion that an engine has to be different in some way for use in boats. It is true that many old style engines were primarily used in boats but that is because it was the main market. The world has changed and now the main market is for industrial use with marine a small market. With the possible exception of Yanmar just about all marine engines share the base engine with industrial units which are far superior in all respects to old style engines.

BTW Nanni and Beta are Kubota based.

Yes sorry I was trusting to memory of an article in "Voiles" Oct 2011.

Here is a summary of the engines reviewed with prices at that date in euros.

Marque- Base- Cylinders- HP- Price in € with VAT(incl gearbox)


Beta- Kubota- 2- 10- 6542-
Bukh- Bukh- 1- 7- ?
Craftsman- Mitsubishi- 2- 12- 6067-
Lombardini- Lombardini- 2- 13- 6372-
Midif- Mitsubishi- 2- 16- 6173-
Nanni- Kubota- 2- 10- 6913-
Sole- Mitsubishi- 2- 10- 6175-
Vetus- Mitsubishi- 2- 12- 6269-
Volvo P.- Shibaura-Perkins- 2- 12- 7653-
Yanmar- Yanmar- 1- 9- 6726-
Beta- Kubota- 3- 20- 7744-
Bukh- Bukh- 2- 24- ?
Craftsman- Mitsubishi- 3- 27- 7328-
Lombardini- Lombardini- 2- 20- 7350-
Midif- Mitsubishi- 3- 27- 7311-
Nanni- Kubota- 3- 21- 9919-
Sole- Mitsubishi- 3- 27- 8350-
Vetus- Mitsubishi- 3- 27- 8721-
Volvo P.- Shibaura-Perkins- 3- 19- 8772-
Yanmar- Yanmar- 3- 21- 9922-
Beta- Kubota- 4- 43- 11513-
Bukh- Bukh- 3- 36- ?
Craftsman- Mitsubishi- 4- 42- 8404-
Lombardini- Lombardini- 4- 40- 9658-
Midif- Mitsubishi- 4- 42- 9173-
Nanni- Kubota- 4- 40- 14260-
Sole- Mitsubishi- 4- 42- 10460-
Vetus- Mitsubishi- 4- 42- 10597-
Volvo P.- Shibaura-Perkins- 4- 40- 12807-
Yanmar- Yanmar- 3- 39- 14542-

Count approx €1000 less for engine alone
Count approx €2000 more for saildrive

PS Is it possible to import an excel table correctly formatted?

 

[glashen]

however, I really want to avoid other people putting themselves through the sort of horrible aggravation I had from the slug engine - which lasted two summers before I fanally gave up after some of the most miserable moments of my brief happy life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbCJ_tKaDng

it cost me around £1500

and I lost ten weeks of good sailing weather

and even then I had to pull the plug on the slug

there are not many pro engineers who are prepared to mess with old engines in small boats

they usually put in some pretty large estimates because they would rather not do the work

so if you are looking for budget sailing

avoid diesel inboards

simple

one of the snags on here is that lots of us have different amounts of money

if a £4,000 bill is peanuts

or you are happy to spend £250 on a pair of leather wellies then buy a boat with a diesel inboard

if on the other hand you are the sort of bloke who carefully budgets what they spend on their boat then.....

an outboard allows you tighter control over your costs

Dylan

I entirely agree it needs careful thought and the answer will be different for different people. I would say that £4000 is certainly not peanuts for me and I don't have any leather wellies either. I still think spending money on a new engine can make sense, I really would not want an outboard, although they have been fitted to Tridents but not for me. Then you have the choice keep spending money on the old engine and I think we agree that is often a bad idea, change the boat and as I said before you may then find other problems costing money or buy a new engine. With a new engine servicing is less of an issue much.of it you can do yourself and if you can either fit it yourself or find someone you trust who will do it at a sensible price you will know what you have and can relax for a good few years.

 

[Rivers & creeks]

so if you are looking for budget sailing

avoid diesel inboards

simple

one of the snags on here is that lots of us have different amounts of money

if a £4,000 bill is peanuts

or you are happy to spend £250 on a pair of leather wellies then buy a boat with a diesel inboard

if on the other hand you are the sort of bloke who carefully budgets what they spend on their boat then.....

an outboard allows you tighter control over your costs

Dylan

Every man believes his decisions are the best.

 

[KellysEye]

>You would be lucky to get an old Volvo to run 8000 hours.

Giiven that old Volvos have been known to run over 80,000 house (not 8,000) with proper servicing I don't know why you think that, as I said they are not lifed. If you have ever seen the thickness of metal on an old Volvo rot is not what they do.

Ours had a mere 15,000 hours on it.

 

[Tranona]

>You would be lucky to get an old Volvo to run 8000 hours.

Giiven that old Volvos have been known to run over 80,000 house (not 8,000) with proper servicing I don't know why you think that, as I said they are not lifed. If you have ever seen the thickness of metal on an old Volvo rot is not what they do.

Ours had a mere 15,000 hours on it.

It all depends on the pattern of usage. There are many Yanmars and modern Volvos that have done well over 10000 hours when used for example in lead boats for charter operators. The point is that most yacht engines are just not used like that and will never do those sorts of hours. After 30 years or so, probably with less than 2000 running hours they are useless because they have not been used. You only have to read a few of the posts on here from people faced with replacement of an old engine to discover that the common failings are to do with cooling and running for short periods at low temperatures with seawater inside them. Does not matter how thick the iron is or how little wear on the reciprocating parts if exhausts get bunged up, manifolds rot, valves coked up, head gaskets blow etc the engine is on its way out.

Modern engines separate the engine from the seawater and if they are run properly will last just as long in a typical yacht as the old style engines - and are smaller, quieter, smoother. What is there not to like?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

>You would be lucky to get an old Volvo to run 8000 hours.

Giiven that old Volvos have been known to run over 80,000 house (not 8,000) with proper servicing I don't know why you think that, as I said they are not lifed. If you have ever seen the thickness of metal on an old Volvo rot is not what they do.

Ours had a mere 15,000 hours on it.

The Volvo 200x series can also be rebuilt completely; every wearing part is replaceable.

 

[KellysEye]

>how little wear on the reciprocating parts if exhausts get bunged up, manifolds rot, valves coked up, head gaskets blow etc the engine is on its way out.

Nothing that can't be fixed easily.