Separate levers

[scottie]

The theory is that you manouver at tick over without using the throttle or even the wheel

Of course you can do this with a single lever control but to engage gear with a single lever you need some effort to overcome the detent and can over run and engage throttle causing a surge rather than a smooth and minimal change of direction

You can make a real mess if you don't keep the revs down some single function controls have an interlock to prevent problems but will only work if set up with one control per engine but a lot of installations are throttle on one control and gear on other

It is down to preference and past experience

 

[Renegade_Master]

Could you please explain a little bit further ? I mean, I don't necessarily disagree but my "feeling" tells me that, in difficult situations, quicke changing of the forward-backward gear whilst not applying thrust in any direction could make you lose precious time...

read my post above explains how to over come this, in th event revs are required which should be rarely in any case

 

[MapisM]

Well, if you mean when you said I just put the revs up slightly on each engine first, sorry but that's something I wouldn't recommend to anyone interested to keeping the gearbox in good working order.
Indeed separate levers require more movements, period.
In spite of that, they are better for many people - myself included - once you get used to them. Which takes a bit longer, admittedly.

 

[gjgm]

quicke changing of the forward-backward gear whilst not applying thrust in any direction could make you lose precious time...

I think it was a Flemming 55 he took delivery of
Lovely boat, btw.

 

[ash12]

we had them on the old canteiri di pisa, very good but only good because the boat was quite heavy and never needed any revs to manouver, also had big old 2 stroke GMs which always gave a lot of power in tickover, wouldnt be any good on the broom because it is so light and always needs revs whenever the wind goes over 5 knots.

 

[Piers]

Could you please explain a little bit further ? I mean, I don't necessarily disagree but my "feeling" tells me that, in difficult situations, quicke changing of the forward-backward gear whilst not applying thrust in any direction could make you lose precious time...

No probs. The engines normally idle at 600rpm. Not really enough for good control. The gearboxes are safe for engagement up to 700rpm, so I set the engine throttles to 700 and then just use the gearbox levers to manoeuvre. 700 is OK for good control.

One thing this teaches you is to do things slowly. It also gives you time to use the wheel to kick the stern in or out. However, I must add that there are times when a small amount of additional power is needed, typically under strong wind or tidal flow conditions. In these cases, just opening the appropriate throttle is simple - just lean over to the throttles and use them.

Last point. The throttles and gearbox levers are separated by anout 3 feet. They are on opposite sides of the wheel, so using the wrong levers doesn't happen!

 

[rule the waves]

Well, if fitted with separate levers, your arrangement at opposite sides of the helm is probably better then the same side. Except if you're really, really exclusively left or right handed...

 

[Doghousekeeper]

The theory is that you manouver at tick over without using the throttle or even the wheel

Yes, but a better theory is to use the wheel as well. No reason not to, just remember that it delivers the benefit to the engine in forward gear. Greatly improves manoeuverability