On Mar 11, 12:29*pm, Capt John wrote:
Their's a very interesting article in this months Soundings about a
start up company in Florida that's developing diesel outboards with
some high hp output, most that are around now are low hp output. They
apparently have a working 2.3 liter prototype that put's out "about
200 hp". They had it on something like a 20 foot boat, fuel burn at
WOT, something like 5.6 gph. The article indicated that a typical
outboard of about 200 hp burns about 12 or 13 gph at WOT (I'm doing
this from memory, so I could be off a little). They never gave fuel
burn rates for a normal cruise RPM's, but I'd guess your probably in
the 4 gph range with WOT numbers like that. I'm not an outboard guy, I
like my inboard diesels, but somewhere in the 4 gph range is
impressive (might even be less). Their developing a 3.0 liter engine
as well. The weight of the engine wasn't bad either, like a typical
outboard of the same output. The engines are apparently rated for an
8,000 hour life as well. The prototype had a Mercury lower end (their
working on their own design), and the guy who wrote the article had a
chance to try it on a boat, so it's more than just a pipe dream. I
wouldn't be surprised to see one of the large engine manufacturers buy
them up if the engines look like their the real thing. I sure hope the
article wasn't an "April Fools" joke.

Oh, crap. Harry will go completely insane and start calling the people
involved the worse names he can think of even though he knows nothing
about them!