On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:30:14 -0700 (PDT), Capt John
wrote:

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.

I checked again last night, it's on page 34. The boat was a 22 foot
Glassmaster, weighted just under 3000 pounds. The fuel burn rate was 6
gph, the milage they gave was 5.6 mpg (I wish they would use knots
instead of miles) with full fuel. It sounded like their four cylinder,
four stroke, turbo charged engines. A two stroke is going to need a
blower of some kind for exhaust scavenging. I imagine it wouldn't be
very easy to cram a turbo, a blower, and the plumbing for the air
under a small outboard cover, if it were a two stroke. Also, with the
regulations going the way they are, if it were a two stroke, you
probably wouldn't be able to sell them a few years from now. It was
interesting, if they do what they claim to do, you could probably
throw a pair of 3.0's on a 25 foot center console, get the same kind
of speed, and probably burn like 10 gph. A day trip to the Hudson
Canyon, three hours out, three back, seven hours of trolling, probably
75 gallons of fuel, I would guess that's about half what you would
burn now with gas outboards. These guy's could be the future of
offshore fishing with the way fuel prices are. The only thing that
could kill them would be if the manufacturer got greedy, and wanted an
outragous amount of money for the engines.

I have a 3 liter ETEC 200 hp HO (90 degree block) that accomplishes
about the same fuel efficiency.

I'm also curious about their speed figures - did the article mention
what speeds were attained?