GL: choosing your great loop boat single engine vs twins

[Kendall Caputo]

Vinny:

This topic was just touched on at sight for Mainship owners.  I am reposting
my comments there to this site.  My apologies to anyone who may subscribe to
both lists.

The problem with a single engine boat is that if you cruise far and long
enough eventually you are going to have an engine break down.  Usually it is
something simple.  But on the single screw that means either a repair
underway or a tow.  The only singles I have ever owned were on sailboats.  I
had two such breakdowns on my Bristol but I was able to sail into port.
That bow thruster ain't getting you home.  
Yes, the props on a twin are not protected by the keel but as Bob pointed
out the singles get fouled too.  On the Bristol I once fouled a lobster buoy
in Maine.  The buoy got lodged between the prop and the keel aperture and
actually stalled the 25hp diesel engine.  
For every time you hit a submerged log there are a 100 times that your
vessels bow wave pushes floating or submerged debris out of the way.  In
some five thousand hours underway with twins I have hit maybe a dozen
submerged objects.  Never once did it disable the boat or cause intolerable
vibration.  
As for grounding, if you are in water shallow enough that you could go
around you should be moving at headway speed and you'll probably be moving
forward.  So the hull will usually ground forward of the props first.  If
that happens you back out the same way you came in. Keep in mind that the
places you are most likely to go aground are in areas where shifting sand
shoal the channel.  The good new is that these are soft bottoms that won't
cause much damage.    
The last consideration is fuel economy.  If you are willing to exercise
discipline and go slow you will get comparable fuel economy out of you
twins.  And, really want to you can run one engine at a time, although it
your boat won't handle as well and depending on the transmission you may
need to lock the shaft on the idle engine.  But that is a different topic.

I previously worked the docks at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. We
would see nearly 1,000 transients come and go every month.  Here are my
observations.

.         There were many more crash landings, ugly dockings, near misses
and T-bones by singles (with thruster) than with twins.

.         Single engine boats were much more likely to dock bow in, twins
more likely to stern in.

.         Twin operators generally seemed more confident upon departure and
less frazzled on arrival.

.         Single owners often pointed to the twin screws as the reason the
other guy's docking was better than his own.

.         In our admittedly raging current and heavy winds I frequently saw
the prevailing condition over power the bow thruster.  (Maybe they were
undersized).

.         Most single owners rely too much on the thruster and don't learn
how to maneuver their boat by main propulsion alone.

.         Most boaters (this goes for both singles and the twins) have no
clue how to use spring lines to get in or out of a berth.
 



Thanks to everyone for the e-mails.  I guess I was just at a lull in the
traffic.

My wife and I are sailors presently but the Loop is in our near future.  We
have someone interested in our Hunter 40 and are on the hunt for the perfect
Trawler.  We will be at the boat show in Annapolis in October and have
already looked at several boats both new and used.  We are now past what we
thought was the need for a second cabin and will be looking at more boats
with a single cabin and one large head.  I am also in favor of one engine as
well.  We only go 7kts now and that has worked for all of my boating life so
why change that now. We looked at Nordhavn, both new (40) and used (35).  An
Eagle 40 that is 8 years old and looks like it just left the dealer
yesterday. A Krogan 47 that we decided is getting to big for our needs and
various other brands as well such as Marine Trader, Monk and of course Grand
Banks.


So the search will go on.

Vinny




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