Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about how
big to go. I would like a 4 stroke and I am thinking that about 5 HP would
be a good size. Any comments about the different brands would be
appreciated.
Also, do I really need a "long shaft" motor. With the motor mount currently
on the boat, it seems to me that any motor would easily bury the prop.

Regards,
Bruce

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

Hi Bruce
A long shaft is definitely recommended.
In an emergency (read storm) the wave action would have your prop more above
than below the waterline.
So not thrust. FWIW
--
c ya Wim
www.cruising.ca/thousand/f-index.html


"Bruce" wrote in message
...
: I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about how
: big to go. I would like a 4 stroke and I am thinking that about 5 HP
would
: be a good size. Any comments about the different brands would be
: appreciated.
: Also, do I really need a "long shaft" motor. With the motor mount
currently
: on the boat, it seems to me that any motor would easily bury the prop.
:
: Regards,
: Bruce
:
:

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

A long shaft Yamaha or Honda would be a good choice. It will run you about
$300 to $800 more than a Mercury or OMC (Johnson / Evinrude) but these are
bullet-proof motors. The Yamaha's are little rare in some parts of the
country but the Honda's are fairly available. If you are going out of
country (like Mexico) you may want to consider a Mercury. Note too that the
Nissan, Suzuki and Mercury (Mariner) small bore motors are actually made by
Tohatsu. The size you want is about right for that boat. Anything from 4
to 8 hp should do the job... more costs more so think about your horsepower
with the idea that it may be used for hours at a time if you have no wind
and are impatient or if you have a lot of wind and need to handle the boat
against it.

Best;
Chris

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about how
big to go. I would like a 4 stroke and I am thinking that about 5 HP
would
be a good size. Any comments about the different brands would be
appreciated.
Also, do I really need a "long shaft" motor. With the motor mount
currently
on the boat, it seems to me that any motor would easily bury the prop.

Regards,
Bruce

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

"Chris Edmonson" wrote...
A long shaft Yamaha or Honda would be a good choice. It will run you about
$300 to $800 more than a Mercury or OMC (Johnson / Evinrude) but these are
bullet-proof motors. The Yamaha's are little rare in some parts of the
country but the Honda's are fairly available. If you are going out of
country (like Mexico) you may want to consider a Mercury. Note too that the
Nissan, Suzuki and Mercury (Mariner) small bore motors are actually made by
Tohatsu. The size you want is about right for that boat. Anything from 4
to 8 hp should do the job...

Remember that the 8 HP motor is the same as the 10, except for max RPM and HP
rating (about 105 lb for the Yamaha 4-stroke, long-shaft, 'sailboat special',
IIRC). Therefore, it is MUCH heavier than the 5 HP. For the small boat,
lighter is better!

I had both Honda and Yamaha 10s on my San Juan 7.7. Either one was overkill in
terms of HP. The Honda was lighter, but the Yamaha had a better feature set
with the starter and alternator. I now have a Honda 4-stroke 2 on my SeaPearl
21 (much lighter and cleaner than the San Juan 21, though). A 4 or 5 HP
4-stroke should be plenty for the San Juan. A long shaft is good for sailboats,
mainly because of the pitching action in waves that will lift a short shaft out
of the water. You want to have the prop lower than you normally would for a
transom mount on a powerboat, so it will stay in the water when pitching.

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

Hi Bruce,
I'm surprised that nobody in their replies to you has brought up the
subject
of gear ratio's. Unless things have changed in the past year or so, I
found it
was difficult to find a motor with a high gear ratio(close to 3.0), as
opposed to
the common 'egg beater' offerings (closer to 2.0 or less). Most
sailboats are
heavy displacement vessels (except for some catamarans, etc.), and will
not come
out of the water to plane. This translates into a requirement for a
'pusher' type
motor, where the propellor turns slower for any given engine speed, but
produces
more torque, or push. I almost bought the Honda two years ago, but when
I discovered
that it's gear ratio was close to 2.0, switched my decision to the
Yamaha 4 stroke
'high thrust' model with a gear ratio of 2.92. Some people may claim
that their
Honda's work fine on their boats, but I would guess that if they got
caught in a
strong on coming sea, they would have trouble pointing their boat into
the wind.
The only other engine I considered was a Mercury 4-stroke, but it
weighed about
20 pounds more than the equivalent Yamaha, but did have a decent gear
ratio.
The best pusher I ever owned was a British Seagull, with a gear ratio of
almost
4.0. That engine was shown in photos push huge barges around (only 6
hp). I have
the 9.9 hp Yamaha on my 22 foot sailboat, which weighs about 2 tons
unloaded. I
could have gone with their 8.0 hp high thrust engine, but for some
strange reason,
it actually weighed a few pounds more than the 9.9 and I felt the extra
horsepower
would give better performance. I don't know why there are not more
offerings of
high gear ratio engines. When I bought my Chrysler 'Sailor' model over
a decade
ago, there was a wider selection of these types. My only regret is that
the Yamaha
is not lighter, as I can no longer heft it's 99 pounds over the transom
into the
boat, as I could with my previous engines. Although 4-strokes are
inherently heavier
than their 2-stroke counterparts, eventually they will be able to get
the weights
down to more reasonable levels.

Sherwin Dubren

Bruce wrote:

I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about how
big to go. I would like a 4 stroke and I am thinking that about 5 HP would
be a good size. Any comments about the different brands would be
appreciated.
Also, do I really need a "long shaft" motor. With the motor mount currently
on the boat, it seems to me that any motor would easily bury the prop.

Regards,
Bruce

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

All good points being made here. If the wieght maximum you have in mind is
clear to you then go with a smaller four stroke. I have found it difficult
to move much more than fifty or sixty pounds of bulky motor around so would
tend to go with a smaller motor than a lot of folks might choose. The other
thing is that the four strokes make power at a lower RPM so may be best on
fuel economy over the long run. The gear ratio is perhaps not as large an
issue as it was when almost all of the motors were two strokes that needed
the higher RPM's to get you going. The propeller's pitch can give you some
of the pushing power that the old gear ratio change would give. If you
don't have enough umph move down a couple of inches in pitch and gain power
earlier in the curve. The four strokes definitely handle this change very
well.

Best;
Chris


"Bruce" wrote in message
...
I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about how
big to go. I would like a 4 stroke and I am thinking that about 5 HP
would
be a good size. Any comments about the different brands would be
appreciated.
Also, do I really need a "long shaft" motor. With the motor mount
currently
on the boat, it seems to me that any motor would easily bury the prop.

Regards,
Bruce

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 19:56:06 -0400, "Bruce"
wrote:

I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about how
big to go.

How are you going to use it?

If you are only going to use it for getting out of and into the slip,
I'm wondering if an electric trolling motor would suit your needs.
It's lighter, less expensive, and much quieter than any sort of fuel
motor.

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

Hi Chris,
Your point about the 4-strokes developing power (or torque) at lower
rpm's
than 2-strokes is correct, but I'm not sure that leaves the gear ratio's
out
of the picture entirely. First of all, why would Yamaha and Mercury go
to higher
gear ratio's on their 'high thrust' engines, if it would be simpler to
just change
the propellor pitch to achieve the same result? Secondly, I would be a
little
nervous about experimenting with a propellor's pitch to match it
optimally to
the engine. The bottom line is will a 4-stroke engine with a low gear
ratio
and a compensating pitch propellor run as well as a 4-stroke with a
higher
gear ratio engine with it's appropriate propellor (I don't think so).
Actually,
both the higher gear ratio and the propellor can each contribute to the
higher
thrust. However, given a choice, I would go with the higher gear ratio
which
would allow me to get even more thrust by decreasing the propellor
pitch. With
the lower gear ratio engines, I can only lower the pitch of the
propellor which
has obvious limits as to how much this can be done.

Sherwin Dubren

Chris Edmonson wrote:

All good points being made here. If the wieght maximum you have in mind is
clear to you then go with a smaller four stroke. I have found it difficult
to move much more than fifty or sixty pounds of bulky motor around so would
tend to go with a smaller motor than a lot of folks might choose. The other
thing is that the four strokes make power at a lower RPM so may be best on
fuel economy over the long run. The gear ratio is perhaps not as large an
issue as it was when almost all of the motors were two strokes that needed
the higher RPM's to get you going. The propeller's pitch can give you some
of the pushing power that the old gear ratio change would give. If you
don't have enough umph move down a couple of inches in pitch and gain power
earlier in the curve. The four strokes definitely handle this change very
well.

Best;
Chris

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about how
big to go. I would like a 4 stroke and I am thinking that about 5 HP
would
be a good size. Any comments about the different brands would be
appreciated.
Also, do I really need a "long shaft" motor. With the motor mount
currently
on the boat, it seems to me that any motor would easily bury the prop.

Regards,
Bruce

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

Sherwin;

True enough that gear ratio is of import but I think in the dollar range I
have seen people willing to spend a $150 propeller change will get more for
the expense than the $700 to $1500 sometimes charged for gear change. The
retail marine motor business is spotty at best. Often someone looking for a
particular motor will find that particular motor difficult to obtain. I
have even had people look into changing a short shaft motor into a long
shaft motor along with a gear change... just not cost effective. I guess I
was thinking more of someone wanting to correct a situation with an existing
motor than getting a new one.

Motors are set up for the different kinds of jobs they do. A work boat will
typically have the "high thrust" version whereas a sport fishing boat often
goes for speed / troll trade-offs. A sailboat that cannot plane does not
need a high pitch prop (equates to higher end speed in a planing hull). The
rule of thumb is that for every inch of pitch change you will increase or
decrease your max rpm's by 150 tp 200 rpm (a fact that is written on the
Mercury propeller box). For fuel economy you might choose a lower pitch
that will make power at a lower rpm... in a way this IS a gear change. On
my own sailboats I have gotten hull speed long before I ever get to max
thrust of the motor. It has allowed a smaller motor to be used and saved on
the expense and wieght of the larger motor and the fuel savings on a long
use of the motor. This last is relatively unimportant because in a season's
use I can count the tanks used on one hand!

Because the high thrust option is needed to extend even further the range of
useful power generated by the engine it is reasonable to make a motor with a
MUCH higher gear ratio... so in terms of designing a workboat or sailboat
motor it is understandable that the gear ratios are offered. It is just
that they are not readily available everywhere. There are charts at almost
all marine motor dealers that match pitch to a variety of motors so there
isn't really much experimenting to do to get the power you are seeking.
Overall I have to agree with pretty much everything you say BUT in terms of
expense and availability I would look at my motor with the idea that unless
I were replacing the whole thing I would opt for a pitch change before I
would get hung up on getting a motor that may not be obtainable at the
moment. Your points are very well taken though and if you can find the gear
ratio option it is an easy cure for the thrust question.

Best;
Chris

"Sherwin Dubren" wrote in message
...
Hi Chris,
Your point about the 4-strokes developing power (or torque) at lower
rpm's
than 2-strokes is correct, but I'm not sure that leaves the gear ratio's
out
of the picture entirely. First of all, why would Yamaha and Mercury go
to higher
gear ratio's on their 'high thrust' engines, if it would be simpler to
just change
the propellor pitch to achieve the same result? Secondly, I would be a
little
nervous about experimenting with a propellor's pitch to match it
optimally to
the engine. The bottom line is will a 4-stroke engine with a low gear
ratio
and a compensating pitch propellor run as well as a 4-stroke with a
higher
gear ratio engine with it's appropriate propellor (I don't think so).
Actually,
both the higher gear ratio and the propellor can each contribute to the
higher
thrust. However, given a choice, I would go with the higher gear ratio
which
would allow me to get even more thrust by decreasing the propellor
pitch. With
the lower gear ratio engines, I can only lower the pitch of the
propellor which
has obvious limits as to how much this can be done.

Sherwin Dubren

Chris Edmonson wrote:

All good points being made here. If the wieght maximum you have in mind
is
clear to you then go with a smaller four stroke. I have found it
difficult
to move much more than fifty or sixty pounds of bulky motor around so
would
tend to go with a smaller motor than a lot of folks might choose. The
other
thing is that the four strokes make power at a lower RPM so may be best
on
fuel economy over the long run. The gear ratio is perhaps not as large
an
issue as it was when almost all of the motors were two strokes that
needed
the higher RPM's to get you going. The propeller's pitch can give you
some
of the pushing power that the old gear ratio change would give. If you
don't have enough umph move down a couple of inches in pitch and gain
power
earlier in the curve. The four strokes definitely handle this change
very
well.

Best;
Chris

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
I need to buy an outboard for my San Juan 21 and not quite sure about
how
big to go. I would like a 4 stroke and I am thinking that about 5 HP
would
be a good size. Any comments about the different brands would be
appreciated.
Also, do I really need a "long shaft" motor. With the motor mount
currently
on the boat, it seems to me that any motor would easily bury the prop.

Regards,
Bruce

Outboard recommendations for a San Juan 21
 

Chris Edmonson wrote:

... four strokes make power at a lower RPM ....

That's not true for motorcycle engines so I suspect it's untrue for
outboards. Four strokes *sound* like they're at lower RPM because they
only fire half as often at the same RPM.

Another concern might be pollution. Two strokes have more oil in their
exhaust.