Engine replacement cost

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12 Year Plan B-)

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Good evening all.
Does anybody have recent experience of re-powering a 30-35 ft. sailing yacht with a 20-35 hp Beta or Yanmar and if so how much did it cost?
I know the swap will involve a complete stern gear set up in this case. Also vessel will be 20-40 years old so 'traditional' access issues may feature!
Thanks in advance and safe sailing.
 
6 years ago, the boat-show price for a Beta 25 was ~£4.5K, so say a total ~£6K for all materials and DIY. Professional installation add say 50%, £3K???.
More for the bigger engines. Not much less for the B20
 
13yrs ago my Beta 25 cost about £4500 including new prop, shaft, insulation, Volvo seal and new exhaust system. I did all the work myself with the installation verified by the local Beta engineer to get the warranty. I got a good deal at the London Boat Show for the Beta.
 
You will need to translate my costs into local currency... but less than a year ago I repowered my 34 footer with a new Betamarine 25.
The engine (complete) in a crate with transmission, upgraded instrument panel, and optional 70 amp alternator and connections for my hot water heater tank cost me about 10K US$. I did most of the prep. work and helped our installer remove the old engine and install the new one. Approx cost for all of the install work was about $5K. (again, in US$).
I also saved some money by doing the work at the slip; no fees for hauling out.

It's ironic that this marinized Kubota engine starts out in a big factory in Japan, goes to England, and then gets assembled with a combination of parts, some metric and a few from the US....
Distributed back here to the East coast, and then shipped across the continent to me.
"Global economy" indeed! This engine could almost have its own passport, with several stamps on it!
:)
Good engine, tho, and VERY much quieter than the 30 year old diesel that I took out. Less vibration, too. Almost *never* needs the glow plugs to start, even down to less than 40 degree F.

Best of luck to you!

ps: I have some pix and description in my blog if you want the link.
 
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7 years ago French marine in brightlingsea Re engineed my 1972 30 footer with a 3 pot yanma.. new beds. Stern & shaft gear prop and morse cost £ 7.500 expensive but well worth it.
 
For us

A £1500 fee on top of engine cost, to swap out on a like for like engine. Plus swearing about access, for us.

Where costs escalate are on a non like for like swap. Look out for new bearers, cables, exhaust piping etc. adding cost if pipe work diameters are different.
 
My pal had a B20 in his Elizabethan a couple of years ago. The engine was about £4.5k other bits about £900 including a bigger prop. Installation he did himself and involved an angled ladder, ropes, blocks and timbers. Probably 2k to have installed professionally.
 
I swapped a 2GMF for a 3YM20. Same engine bed but needed 4 new fixing holes drilled and tapped, about 1" chopped off propshaft, exhaust hose shortened, old prop retained but changed to a posh feathering one this winter. Swap carried out by 2 septuagenarians in 1 day using a serendipitously placed skyhook and a chain hoist. Cost was new engine, less £900 for the old one on eBay, and £1400 for the twirly bladed prop.
 
I did a swap about 10 years ago and it cost something under £5000 - by doing all the work myself. The 20hp engine was about £3,700 at the time and I guess they are, perhaps £1000 more today. So I should say it could be done for under £6,000.
However, all the systems were pretty good and I was able to reuse a lot of stuff including the prop, fuel tank and lines, insulation, exhaust run, engine controls etc.
 
By the way, I don't think special boat show deals apply in this day and age. Betamarine are always willing to cut a deal to get a sale. We visited their works and had a very informative discussion with their sales manager resulting in a purchase. My pal even got them to throw in a boiler suit and baseball cap.
 
12 Year Plan B-) said:
Does anybody have recent experience of re-powering a 30-35 ft. sailing yacht with a 20-35 hp Beta or Yanmar and if so how much did it cost?
I know the swap will involve a complete stern gear set up in this case. Also vessel will be 20-40 years old so 'traditional' access issues may feature!
Click to expand...

Unless you're able to do much of the work yourself, you'd probably need to budget for a £10K spend.
 
3 years ago repowering cost me about £6500 with a Beta 20, new shaft, cutlass brg, folding prop fitted in the middle of the summer by TS Marine.

I loved the engine and ease of use but did experience a few issues with TS.
 
In 2016 I swapped my Yanmar 2 GM for a Beta 20. Happily the shaft & sterngear were compatible so no cost there. The engine bed had to be raised by only 20mm so could be packed up with hardwood. The engine cost £4463 delivered incl VAT. Surprisingly it was a bit cheaper to buy direct from Beta as they did not charge extra for delivery.
I did this afloat and the only real addition cost was about £50 for the use of the quayside crane to remove old and drop in new. I also had a handy brother in law with a useful workshop nearby. Add a few quid for paint and sundries for all the things which you might as well do while the engine is out.
 
I changed an old Albin engine for an equally old Yanmar on my last sailing boat, a 26' Van De Stadt.

Do not underestimate just what a task this is. Had the job been done by someone being paid I reckon easily £3-4,000 for their time.

I had to deal with ...

Making of the Mounts & relative coarse Shaft alignment prior to install, including a lot of geometry calculations, and provision of adjustability to get the final alignment once the engine was in.

This was the hardest part.

Getting it craned in and set up on the mountings

Connecting up and closely aligning the shaft and output coupling, including a suitable adaptor plate I had to make.

Fuel supply system - the original was petrol the replacement was diesel

Exhaust system

Cooling system

Electrical hook up

Control cables

On that install nothing of the original (and very horrible / lethal ) petrol driven Albin was re-usable apart from the shaft, stern tube & seal and prop.
 
12 Year Plan B-) said:
Good evening all.
Does anybody have recent experience of re-powering a 30-35 ft. sailing yacht with a 20-35 hp Beta or Yanmar and if so how much did it cost?
I know the swap will involve a complete stern gear set up in this case. Also vessel will be 20-40 years old so 'traditional' access issues may feature!
Thanks in advance and safe sailing.
Click to expand...

Allow £10k if you sre paying someone else to do the work. More if you decide to replace the fuel tank as well.

Boo2
 
12 Year Plan B-) said:
Good evening all.
Does anybody have recent experience of re-powering a 30-35 ft. sailing yacht with a 20-35 hp Beta or Yanmar and if so how much did it cost?
I know the swap will involve a complete stern gear set up in this case. Also vessel will be 20-40 years old so 'traditional' access issues may feature!
Thanks in advance and safe sailing.
Click to expand...
Probably irrelevant to your situation but three years ago I had my Volvo Penta MD17C 35hp engine replaced by a reconditioned Nanni 4.150HE, a 37.5hp, 4 cylinder, Kubota-based engine.

All work done in Italy by a Nanni dealer with all ancillary components - transmission, propeller, controls, cooling, etc. replaced by new units.
Total cost €11'000 (£9'500).

Just posted to remind you that Nanni marinize the same Kubota engine range as Beta and the result for me was a truly excellent product.
 
I am in the middle of this process at the moment, replacing a VP engine with a Beta with TS Marine.

As said above, I'm guessing that the engine will be £4k-£6k, depending on the size and spec, and whether you are intending to keep your current gearbox.

Another big factor on the cost is whether you need to lift the boat out to do it or not. If you are replacing the propshaft and prop for instance, then you will need the boat to come out, which in itself is likely to add at least £1,000 to the cost.

TS Marine offer a "fit and align" service, which covers craning the old engine out, craning the new engine in, the fabrication of any new engine beds needed, bolting the new engine down and aligning it. They charge £960+vat for this, which is excellent value.

This then just leaves you to connect the fuel, water, exhaust, cables, and electrics, which is pretty straight-forward if you are a hands-on owner, otherwise I would budget about £1,000 for the yard to do that for you.

I initially talked to Beta direct for a price, but they suggested that I talk to TS Marine, who matched the price and are also supplying the new prop and propshaft (and are giving me a better deal on those that I could get direct), so I would recommend this route to you, as it saves you money and reduces the headache of having to deal with multiple suppliers.

So, in summary, I would suggest that the cost could be anywhere between £6k and 10k depending on all the above factors.

Hope that helps.

Bob
 
Bobc said:
TS Marine offer a "fit and align" service, which covers craning the old engine out, craning the new engine in, the fabrication of any new engine beds needed, bolting the new engine down and aligning it. They charge £960+vat for this, which is excellent value.
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That's astonishing value really.

I've got this in the back of my mind - although I'm intending to keep my old Vetus going for as long as possible, there will come a time when it has to be replaced. I've had engines in and out of cars loads of times, so the basic mechanical elements don't scare me. The plan I had in the back of my mind was to do loads of research to try to find a new engine with the closest match to the footprint of the Vetus, and then when I was ready to go, hire a truck with a hiab and use that as an engine crane.

At £1,200 inclusive though, I'd go down the TS marine route every single day of the week.
 
Balbas said:
At £1,200 inclusive though, I'd go down the TS marine route every single day of the week.
Click to expand...

That was my thought too. I was going to do it all myself, but once you've factored-in the crane fees, and the cost of getting new engine bearers made, I was going to be well over half that the cost, so paying a few hundred quid more to have all the difficult and heave bits done for me, we a complete no-brainer.
 
Friend last year had a new VolvoPenta 20HP fitted on a 26 footer, engineer did the lot came in at £8k then a new fuel tank at £800 I think it depends on how much you want/are able to do yourself and the engineers availability, she ended up losing the entire sailing season.
 
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