Our new (old) vessel is equipped with a 24hp Bukh twin cylinder. Due to
incorrect wiring to the battery isolation switches we accidentally flattened
all the batteries on the weekend and were forced to handstart.

My old boat had a Volvo engine that was decompressed by lifting a lever on
the side of the engine, hand crank then throw the lever and away she went.
Easy as could be.

As far as I can tell, this engine (the Bukh) has a spring loaded lever at
the front of the engine that you must hold down with one hand while trying
to turn the engine over with the other. Damn difficult to do and it's
extremely difficult to get spinning with only one hand free. Even with a
second person holding down the lever it's bloody hard to get it spinning.

Is this simply brought about by the size of the engine (the Vovlo would have
been half the size) or am I doing something wrong ?

Hopefully someone out there can give me some advice.

All the best

TDW