The late, great Thomas Colvin advised that one needed about 1HP per ton of displacement for one’s auxiliary engine. Note the emphasis on the word auxiliary. Using Colvin’s formula, that works out to an 8HP engine for the Islander 36. Our current raw water cooled Yanmar 3HM is a 27HP. Of course, Tom Colvin was …
Ian asked what affordable means and I realized I was less than clear about my wants where propulsion is concerned. So, let’s dig in… Affordable is a scary word these days and pretty much useless without context. In my case, back when I first put together an electric drive for “So It Goes” I spent …
Every morning at just about 9:00 a.m., a daysail trimaran slips past our stern taking tourists off to Buck Island. I mention this because most of the days I really envy their quiet outboard as they whisper past. Yeah, I suffer from outboard envy. Outboards make all kinds of sense for sailboats and I often …
I just saw that the Chinese auto builders are coming up with cheap EVs and the prices really took my breath away. Try $9,698 on for size. Which, I’m told, is $50K less than the average EV available in the US of A. Almost makes me want to go out and buy a car. Which, …
something from the “not really surprising” files… Read More »
Today’s mailbag included this , shall we say, rant on the subject of senseless horsepower on boats. It’s well worth the read. For me, the whole idea of a 500-horsepower outboard engine on a boat (much less four or five of them is simply insane. Then again, the largest boat engine I’ve owned was a …
Today’s job is to sort out some more exhaust hose for the Islander. Hopefully there will be enough hose on island so it’s just a matter of buying it but the general rule on parts for the engine is having to buy stuff online and then wait for the needful bits to get down to …
I’ve not forgotten the DIY self-steering post that sits unfinished on my desktop. Truth is, I’d much prefer finishing it rather than the internal combustion clusterfuck I’m sorta/kinda dealing with. The problem is mostly that I just don’t like working on engines for starters as engines are, more often than not, oily messy contraptions that …
Every day or so, West Marine sends me an email trying to sell me something and, while I seldom ever buy anything from them, it is a connection I keep an eye on in the hope that, one of these days, they’ll come up with something truly needful. I’m still waiting on that but my …
I’m on So It Goes today sorting out a CARE package to take back to the Islander to complete the various projects. I’m also waiting for some cable and cable lugs. It’s amazing just how work grinds to a stop when you don’t have all the bits and pieces in hand. That being the case, …
For starters here’s a must read article on marine fuel that both scares me shitless as well as pisses me off… I’m not a huge fan of internal combustion engines and, given a choice, I’d much rather be engine-less or use just a small outboard as we did with So It Goes. The fact that …
