T&T: Trawler vs motor yacht and engine loss

[Bob England]

I think my biggest reason for twin engines is that it looks very stressfull
when the single engine fellows try to back there boat into the slip or sidle
up to a fuel dock. The deck hand usually takes the brunt of it,and even I have
learned a few new words by just watching. I know, all the S.E. guys will say
"it's easy, you just do this or that then tie this to that and fill'er back"
but, I still watch'em crash land regularly. As for engine loss, I have on a
few occasions lost one engine. Ok, several occasions. Only once due to fuel. I
think the old speel about fuel being the number one cause of diesel engine
failure applies to ametures only. A little reconfiguring of the fuel system,
some filters and a decent pump,  and fuel problems will not be a major (or
even minor) concern. My experience has been that raw water pumps are the worst
offenders, followed by engine belts, alternators, starters, and heat
exchangers. The more of those you get rid of the more the reliability
increases. Very few engines have direct driven accessories (Detroit Diesel
comes to mind, but the trade off being it's a 2 stroke, kinda trumps the
direct drive advantage, Cummins 6b and c series direct drive raw water pump,
etc.) Alternators are usually reliable until loaded to much for to long, which
is typical for our type of boating. Massive upgrades aleviate this problem.
Starters usually go bad from just being in a bad environment and nonuse,
followed by overuse, (if it doesn't start right now, overcranking it will kill
the starter, then a slow sputtery start will overspin the starter, bad news)
Air starters, or my favorite, hydraulic starters, are much more reliable. But,
you need air pressure (if you have a use for compressed air you can justify a
compressor, who doesn't need compressed air ?) Hydraulic starters can be
either electrically charged or manually charged, with an acumulator. Heat
exchangers can be changed to keel coolers, and with dry exhaust, you can
remove two major problem areas. JMO.