What is the best marine engine ever made

[grumpy_o_g]

marine engine then Sabb
the 4108 is an industrial engine used for many things, i swapped out mine @ 2200 hrs & sold it for somebody else rebuild it

The only Sabb's I've known needed more winding up than a watch to get them going. Once going then absolutely rock solid I agree.

 

[haydude]

Volvo Penta MD2-55 BEST ENGINE I HAD.

 

[Woodlouse]

The only Sabb's I've known needed more winding up than a watch to get them going. Once going then absolutely rock solid I agree.

Our Sabb has been in the boat for 40 years. It was rebuilt after 30 because the saltwater cooling was wearing the insides a bit thin. Since then the only issues its given us have been caused by fuel and the starter solenoid. Since the rebuild its now fresh water cooled so I'm not planning on changing the beast for several decades yet.

 

[petehitch]

Gardner marine engines are the best ever made!!

 

[Tomahawk]

A Sulza...

They come in nice little packets with some 50,000 hp per cylinder.

 

[NOHOH]

My Perkins 4236 is 41 years old, still working well, never having been rebuilt. The one previous other owner was fastidious about changing the oil in it at least twice a year....and I have followed his excellent example. I expect it to only eventually die of corrosion....but I think it has been greatly assisted in NOT doing this over the years by all the electrical equipment attached to it having their own dedicated returns rather than through the block.

Doubtless posting this peon of praise will induce it to disintegrate next week.

 

[davidej]

They come in nice little packets with some 50,000 hp per cylinder.

50,000 per cylinder?

Shurely shome mistake here.

Even the worlds largest marine engines only produces 5000 per cylinder.

 

[mtb]

petter ac1 ac2 they are good little engines
bmc 1500 these will be found in sea going stuff and narrow boat cheap to run very reliable and parts are easy to get
dorman did some very nice engines as did kelvin but their very pricey
oh look now my age is showing from the engines I like

 

[sailorman]

the petter & bmc were not "marine" engines but adapted industrial units.
The ac1 were poor engines to start with

 

[capnsensible]

Thorneycroft (BMC)

The one on my Moody was born in about 1975 and goes like a goodun.

Have fixed it (rarely) from Britain to Venezuela and parts between. Dogs danglys.

 

[dombuckley]

what in your opinion is the best marine engine made for a sailboat and why?

A Stuart Turner P55, as it improves your sailing ability no end!

Though truth be told, mine is 57 years old, and still going strong.

 

[Border Terrier]

These are good, I was on a ship with SKLs, made in Magdeburg in the GDR, quality machines.

The one in the picture is the exact type fitted in The Kruzenstern, the biggest square rigger, a sailing ship! They must be the best!

Very handily used in the 1976 Tall Ships Race across the Atlantic to Bermuda!


But of course the "game changer" was the steam turbine that powered Charles Parson's Turbinia in front of Queen Victoria at Spithead.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Best Marine engines? The Kelvin and Kelvin Ricardo engines must be up with the best real marine engines ever built. Really really simple designs, easily maintained or repaired with limited effort. At about 800 rpm and swinging a big coarse prop they are good to listen to and effortless-

 

[LittleSister]

I am not clear why some place so much emphasis on whether or not it was designed as a marine engine.

Cleary some marinisations of industrial engines are problematic (mainly about pumping seawater through them, as far as I can make out), but it seems to me not problematic in principle. If you have freshwater cooling, and the engine layout is suitable for the confined spaces of a boat, I can't see that the engine cares whether it's driving a generator, pump, tractor or propellor. I'm also not aware that engines designed as marine engines are any better suited to the damp environment and occasional brief use that most boat engines have to put up with.

What would be the difference between an engine purpose designed today and an equivalent properly marinised (freshwater cooled) industrial engine, apart from the former being much more expensive and parts rarer?

p.s. I have one of each (Bukh & Beta), and I know which I prefer, but that's solely down to age.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Ah proper designed marine engines are slow revving and so swing a big prop, they are easy on the ear, even at top rpm all in all they (proper marine engines) are designed to last and last, getting its crew to destinations time after time with very little effort and in comfort.
Marinised vehical engines are just that, designed with higher rpm in mind, and just do not sound right afloat, even using a reduction box to enable a big prop to be swung, does not match the proper job, soto speak.
Most yachties these days probably have not heard a proper job in action, and are just used to the revving buzz of a marinised job.
But having stated my preduces, today's prices of a proper job just might be very expensive.

 

[KellysEye]

Modern engines are better designed and more efficient than old designs and I asked a number of engine repair shops in the Caribbean which engine they least had to repair and the answer was always Yanmar. One old engine that was built like the proverbial brick outhouse and had no design life, modern ones are 8,000 hours, was the Volvo MD17C. I asked Volvo how much it would cost to build a no design life engine now and they said twice the price of a modern engine.

 

[paul.norton]

In Lively Lady, Alec Rose had a Thornycroft Handybilly engine.

For those who do not know them, they are twin cylinder petrol solidly built - and very heavy - marine engines first produced, IIRC in the 1920s. We had one in a 20 foot converted lifeboat which had the ability to run on TVO (Tractor Vapourising Oil). Still remember that exhaust smell with affection.

Paul

 

[Capt Popeye]

Ahh, TVO, , y-es, them were the days, start and warm upon Petrol,, then swap carb fuel input over to TVO and chug away all day if you wanted to.
Just remembering to swap fuel input back to Petrol in the last few minutes of running the engine.
The ability to remove a engine plug whilst running, lightly, clean the plug and put it back into engine, and still Cary on motoring.

 

[LittleSister]

proper designed marine engines are slow revving and so swing a big prop, they are easy on the ear, even at top rpm all in all they (proper marine engines) are designed to last and last, getting its crew to destinations time after time with very little effort and in comfort.
Marinised vehical engines are just that, designed with higher rpm in mind, and just do not sound right afloat, even using a reduction box to enable a big prop to be swung, does not match the proper job, soto speak.
Most yachties these days probably have not heard a proper job in action, and are just used to the revving buzz of a marinised job.
But having stated my preduces, today's prices of a proper job just might be very expensive.

Well a slower revving engine may be easier on the ear (though usually more vibration?), but I suspect the rest of what you suggest is, as you say, prejudice.

High reving engines are quite capable of swinging a big prop; not all marine engines are low revving (my industrial engine based Beta peaks at 3,600rpm, as does a Bukh 24); is there any evidence that industrial (or vehicle) engines are any less reliable or durable than a purpose built marine engine of similar vintage?

 

[Sybarite]

BUKH: one of the world’s leading suppliers of SOLAS approved engines for life boats

I have a Nanni

BUKH : I read a French article which said that BUKH was the best and that it was the only engine designed from the outset as a marine engine. The others are adaptations of existing engines. Some excellent nonetheless.