"Flying Pig" wrote in message
...
Hi, Willy :{))

All the jibes aside/ignored as your usual rabble-rousing, I'm impressed...

Spoil sport!


"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in message
anews.com...


I repowered my positive flotation, blue water, cruising yacht for $1,500.

A new 6HP saildrive unit for $1500. Now THAT's impressive.

Not a saildrive. That would be about as bad as an inboard diesel. Lower end
always in the water corroding away, needing zincs, needing scraping, right
there for lobster and crab pot leaders to catch, slowing the boat down about
a knot even if not snagged by anything. You should know better. An outboard
on the transom which can be lifted completely out of the water is the ONLY
way to go on a real sailboat. What you have is a motor sailer - not a
sailboat. I'm afraid you'll never experience the joy of a real sailboat at
the rate you're going.

FWIW, even the little Honda genset which we do use occasionally when
there's no wind and sun to allow my green reseources to charge us up/keep
us full, has many users reporting upward of 10,000 hours.

Sad that some people admit to having to run a generator that many hours. I
wish people like that would stay home on the grid where they belong. There
very existence in an anchorage is vexing to we considerate folk.

Perkins 4-154s in farm service regularly get that much time on them as
well.

And the diesels in locomotives do better than that by far. So, what's the
point other than an admission of extreme motor headedness?

As such, barring some excitement we can't foresee, as we've just gone over
4k hours on the rebuilt unit which was installed during a prior owner's
time, following (presuming the hourmeter which was still in place when the
new tach/hourmeter was installed was stopped on the exchange, or perhaps
before) hard charter service of nearly 7 years, we expect we'll never get
to the end of the life of our auxiliary propulsion unit.

Famous last words! But, you just refused to answer the questions. How
disruptive is that going to be? Answer: very - at least a week or two's
worth of disruption. How expensive? Answer: very - probably 10,000 dollars
or more all told. That should tell you something, Skippy, which is you are
in the same league with WayneB. Only he's more honest going stickless. He's
an out-of-the-closet polluter and proud of it. While I abhor those producing
large quantities of recreational pollution, I don't think being dishonest
about doing the same is any less admirable.

That said, parts for this unit are becoming a bit like hen's teeth, and a
critical part failure could result in a repower. If so, I expect that
we'd go to a Cummins unit which is pretty close to a drop-in.

Pretty close = equals perhaps an extra two or three days sorting things out.

Costs, of course, are an issue - but we have reserves for that specific
purpose. Downtime would be about a day, as there are no exhangeable
parts, and the mechanics of removal and replacement are pretty
straightforward. A sistership just installed a rebuilt in less than a
day, which is about what I'd expect for ours, should the day arrive.

Downtime about a day? LOL. He'll you'll be lucky if it doesn't take more
than a day getting towed to a yard to arrange to get hauled. In the Bahamas,
mon, try two or three days or more. Be honest, Skippy, a repower will
probably involve several weeks downtime much of that on the hard.

Careful maintenance has us expecting a very long life on Perky...

Keeping fingers crossed. smirk

So, when are you going to come whip our sorry asses cruising the Bahamas?
We'll be here, we expect, for almost another year, unless, when we come
back in a couple of weeks, we decide to head further before coming back
for a wedding in March of next year.

Most certainly not in the summertime which is the worst time to cruise the
Bahamas. Terribly fickle and shifty winds, almost daily thunder and
lightning, hot, humid, bugs, chances good to receive a direct hit from a
hurricane, few decent hurricane holes and even those are full of hazards
from stupid boaters who don't have a clue as to how to secure their vessels.

Coming back for a wedding? ROFLOL. Weddings are for women, Skippy. Does the
distaff side there run the program? Wear the pants? Rule the roost?
snickers

After that, we don't have any plans, because cruising plans are always
subject to change, but we might do Mexico (after the FL coast and keys,
which we've jumped over every other time), or the WC, or, just come back
to the Bahamas and work our way down to the EC...

If you do cruise the Keys let me know. I'll buy you and the ball and chain a
beer and give you a tour of the yacht so you'll finally have an inkling of
what a real sailboat is all about.


Wilbur Hubbard