On May 21, 6:34 am, Charlie Morgan wrote:
On Mon, 21 May 2007 12:40:25 -0000, thunder
wrote:

On Mon, 21 May 2007 10:52:57 +0000, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

They are rolling along now on their counter clockwise Great Loop.

Follow along.

http://dnkcruising.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the link. I was reading that he had an engine problem a
couple of days before they set off. I hate that. If he's anything like
me, he'll now have that little seed of doubt in the back of his mind,
just festering. Man, I hate that.

He's a handy guy. Hopefully, it's fixed and the rest will be smooth
sailing.

When Doug bought that tub, many folks questioned the wisdom of a
single engine. Doug's blustery over-confident reply was that with only
one engine, he'd lavish it with twice as much maintenance. Looks like
that was just more wind.

CWM


Darn good thing you never see a twin engine boat getting towed back to
the dock.


Advantages of twins:

1. Redundancy
2. May be easier to handle in some close quarter situations.

(both are important)


Disadvantages of twins:

1. Fuel consumption is 100% higher at the same rpm, (but often only
about 80% higher
at the same speed)

2. Additional weight.

3. Weight is placed higher in many hulls, raising the COG. (Singles
can be placed lower and over the keel).

4. Exposed running gear. (more people probably lose propulsion because
they have torn off a strut or damaged an exposed shaft that los
propulsion doe to the failure of a pproperly maintained diesel engine)

5. Increased risk of sinking. Hit something hard enough to tear off a
strut, and just try to stop the water flooding in through a 3-4 sq ft
hole in the hull. (Singles often run the shaft through a shaft log,
and protect the prop with a skeg and rudder)

6. Maintenance costs are double.

7. Engine room is more crowded, without adequate room to work in many
cases. (As a result of the expense and inconvenience, sometimes twins
get less maintenance than needed).


Singles or twins......some pretty savvy boaters come down on both
sides of this issue.
Very few savvy boaters will dismiss the opposite school of thought as
being without merit.