Repowering Considerations

Repowering Considerations

As time and miles pass, even the best-built and best-equipped cruising boats succumb to wear. Onboard equipment like rigging, sails, pumps, and other gear eventually require renewal. Unfortunately, there also comes a time when the auxiliary engine may need replacement as well.  Although most small, well-cared-for diesels can have an average lifespan of around 10,000 hours, there may come a time to think about replacement prior to that. Not all motors have been well cared for through their lives. Rust, corrosion, poor maintenance and general abuse can shorten an engine’s life. As years pass, replacement parts can become harder and…
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Fifty Years of Diesels

Fifty Years of Diesels

My wife Terrie and I built our first boat, an Ingrid 39 called Nada, in Louisiana, funded by a job in the Gulf of Mexico oilfields. A few years earlier Terrie and I were aboard my brother Chris’ boat — which was equipped with a hard-to-start Thorneycroft engine — when the boat was nearly sunk by a freighter in the English Channel. The image of that freighter bearing down on us, which had given me nightmares for years afterwards, was implanted in my brain. I was determined to have an engine that could be depended upon to start both electrically and…
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