Starting an old diesel.

[rotrax]

See Post #20.

Been there, done that.....................................

Made a piston for one too!

Early ones had no gearbox. Going astern required getting the engine to run backwards.

Not as difficult as you might think.

 

[Daydream believer]

Oh yes you can! A fifty foot trawler in 1972, 5or6 cyl Baudouin, was started by being towed in gear, big prop, 5;1 gearbox. It was air start and the bottle or pipework was gone. I used to start a wing engine in gear, with help from the propulsion of the main, it was easier. 1936 Kelvin Ricardo.

Approx 15 years ago I was in a gale in the Dover Straits. I surfed down a big wave on a broad reach, slipped & accidentally kicked the engine into gear. A short while later I went below & found the engine, a Volvo MD 2020, ticking over

 

[Daydream believer]

Eric Tabarley, I think.

Michel Desjoyeaux. In 2000, When he was leading the Vendée Globe. His starter motor collapsed & he tied a strap to the boom via some pullies. Released the boom & away she went. Story went that shore team told him to remove or release a couple of injectors to reduce compression first. Had to do it every couple of days..

 

[NormanS]

My old 6L3 Gardner 114hp, 17litre, 900rpm, and weighing in at three tons including gear box, had hand starting gear. It consisted of an overhead shaft, with a handle at each end, with a chain drive down to a sprocket on the crankshaft. Each of the six individual cylinders had a decompression lever. The instruction manual stated laconically, "The engine driver may require assistance with this operation". I elected to do without the hand starting gear, and the engine always started very easily, including being able to be "bump" started, when making 4 or 5 knots through the water.