Giving serious consideration to....

[Genesis]

Its basically a certainty that I will sell Gig. She's just in the middle of a bit of interior and exterior work right now, as I've not completed all the "stuff" that I usually do over the winter due to some crazy personal stuff that has taken a lot of my time. Another month or so and she'll be ready to go to whoever may want her. When I'm comfortable "showing" her I'll put a listing here - in the meantime if someone wants her this would definitely be the time to get "ahead" of folks

I know what I want for her.... and if the deal doesn't go at that price, well, then I won't sell her The price is more than fair - but I do know how this business works, have no intention of listing with a broker, and also know that there are plenty of "bottom feeders" out here.

But when you've got a boat with 700 or so hours on rebuilds you know they were done right, the genset's only a few years old, new exhaust (that's an EXPENSIVE proposition), Floscans, nice electronics, etc - I know what I've got here and there ain't nobody going to "steal" her....

One way or another its likely I'll end up with another Hatt.... an intriguing possibility would be a YF with blown engines, rip 'em out and fit a diesel:electric system with a BIG genset. That would allow incredibly economical low-speed operation (e.g. 3nmpg at 9kts), leave half of one engine room for dive gear and such, and yet not sacrifice high speed operation when wanted, plus providing complete "limp home" capability.

You need the right boat for that sort of thing - you basically have to buy one with blown power that the owner does NOT rebuild - but it'd be a project I'd love to take on, as it would be a tremendously unique vessel.... and one with incredible capability as well.

[MikeP]

Eng access - The 53/58's engine access for general work is excellent (for a boat) in my opinion. Outboard is easy since you can walk around it. Inboard - you remove a large panel in the passageway/eng room wall and have full access to the inboard side from the passageway. The panel is quickly removed with twist-locks - takes about 10 seconds! You do have to put the panel somewhere out of the way and, conveniantly, Hatt located the guest stateroom a couple of steps away! There is plenty of clearance above the eng to the ceiling - I do a lot of work sitting on the engine!

In-frame you would have to jack up the engine to get access underneath to drop the oil pan. Out the top there are panels in the saloon floor that can be removed to pull the engs straight up into the saloon. Getting them out of there, frankly, looks interesting. I have to admit I wonder if the saloon floor can take the weight of one of these engines/trannys. Of course you could separate them in the eng room but still - that eng alone is probably 3000+ lbs Of course if you are replacing the engines anyway, most of this is academic.

Now if you want REALLY good engine access - the 58LRC with it's pair of 6-71s has unbelivably roomy eng rooms! And it has a cockpit!

I'm not familiar with the diesel/elec system you mentioned. What is that? Sounds interesting.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

[MikeP]

Well, after asking the question, I did a search on marine diesel/elec and found:

http://www.feys.org/System/our_system.htm

Interesting - Although I knew diesel/elec was used in many large applications like railroad/ships, I hadn't realized anyone had developed it for pleasure boats.

[smoothmove]

It’s encouraging to see that the diesel electric concept has caught the attention of some other forum members. I’ve been considering it for some time now and I keep wondering if it’s as good as it appears. There are some real advantages such as engine placement, engine mount isolation, low speed maneuverability, and ability to limp back on a genset that Genesis mentioned. feys.org had been selling a fairly complex and expensive Siemens design, but are now developing their own system. There have been some huge improvements in some of the controller components that they want to take advantage of. John at Fast Electric Yachts Systems has been fairly candid that the new system is not quite ready for prime time. I’ll be checking back later this Summer to get an update on the progress. I’d be curious to hear opinions about this concept.
Eric

[Maynard Rupp]

It sure sounds interesting. We have been scratching our heads with Unity, our 36C. The boat has Crusader engines that are about half life. I used to build those Chevy big block engines for race cars, so I can re-build them with my eyes closed. Ours run great, are very smooth and quiet. They do lack the low end torque and therfore never get better than 1 nautical mpg. As Pascoe points out, you can throw both gas engines away, buy and install 2 new ones with trannys, and still not be up to the cost of overhaul for a single diesel. Of course 36' and 26000 lbs. is about the upper limit for the available gas engines. I was giving serious thought to a switch to modern diesels. It looks like it would take about 60 k with me doing all the install work. Now I look at what is happening with diesel fuel cost. I have a Ford diesel pickup so I am very familiar with the runup in diesel fuel costs. When I look at regular maintainence I even cringe more. All the fuel filters, 4 gallons of oil per engine and a pair of $25.00 oil filters compared to our gas engines 7 qts. and $3.00 filter is enough to make me tear up the sheet of paper the idea was written on. Our 36C burns 8 gph. at 9 knots, 22 gph at 15 knots and does 23 knots full on. I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy for a while, but look out when the Diesel Electric gets going.

[Genesis]

The problem with the FEYS guys is that I don't believe them. At least not compared to DIESEL original power.

They're claiming you can install one engine with ~60-70% of the original twin's horsepower, yet get the same top end you originally had. That's impossible.

D/E has losses that straight-line propulsion does not. The transmission loss in a straight system is pretty low - single-digit percents. The generator loss alone in an electric system is in the 15-20% range.

There are real advatnages to the CONCEPT with a vessel that wants BOTH low and high speed operation. The reason for this is that diesels really do not like very-low-output operation over long periods of time. So - you run a second diesel, this one normally generating "house" power, and use IT as your low-speed propulsion engine as well.

It only requires perhaps 50 HP to move a boat like mine at hull speed (~7-8kts) I can generate that with ~3gph of fuel burn. But - I can't run my big Detroits like that all the time without damaging them. A D/E system solves this problem in that the "main" engine can be shut down and I can run on the auxiliary when operating in this mode. The boat is a LOT quieter and she's very fuel efficient.

When you want to get up on step, the large main engine is fired up and off you go.

I got into it with the FEYS guys a fear years ago. I wanted to convert Gig, and they promised some pretty fantastic things. I told them that if they'd guarantee, in writing, their performance claims - and that they'd remove and replace their system with conventional if they failed to meet them - I was interested. I also started a very lively discussion over on BoatDiesel about it.

They got very, very quiet and to this day won't answer me any more....

[smoothmove]

Karl,
Just wondering if you were contemplating doing the design and construction of a diesel-electric system yourself. It would take a man of your talents to do it, but wow, that would still be one heavy engineering job.
Eric

[Genesis]

Karl,
Just wondering if you were contemplating doing the design and construction of a diesel-electric system yourself. It would take a man of your talents to do it, but wow, that would still be one heavy engineering job.
Eric

Yes, I am.

The parts are truly off-the-shelf for the most part. Motor controllers are nothing complicated, and neither are generator ends and the motors themselves.

The thing that potentially could get dicey is the gearboxes. That's one problem that FEYS seems to have worked out. Its not hard to design them but building them as a one-off is EXPENSIVE.

I don't think the engineering is particularly complicated at all. One nice thing about using off-the-shelf parts to the extent possible and using "ganging" techniques (e.g. multiple smaller motors instead of one big one) is that if one breaks you can still run on reduced capacity. If you keep the weight of individual components reasonable (other than the engine itself, of course) you also RADICALLY simplify maintenance and replacement issues.

I like what FEYS is doing, I just think their performance claims are bull****. But none of what they're doing is particularly novel or difficult to put together. They're also using off-the-shelf components to the maximum extent possible, which is a good thing......

[Bob Bradley]

Karl, you've got lousy timing. I'd love to own her, but having just opened a new business, I'll be lucky to be able to afford diesel fuel, much less move up a notch from my 43C.

Now if she's still for sale this time next year...

[smoothmove]

I should be careful here not to put words into FEYS' mouth but I believe their new approach involves a direct (coaxial) connection of the motor to the prop shaft, eliminating the gearbox. Of course this moves the engineering compromises over to the motor design which is no longer "off the shelf". I believe the earlier earlier approach used a gangable gearbox from Siemens, and that wa$ an expen$ive component.