Get Me Home Power

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kingfish

Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Messages
6
Location
USA
Vessel Name
happyours
Vessel Make
Whitcraft50
Looking at a single screw vessel and doing research on get home.

Would love an outboard diesel but hard to find the old Yanmar and their real expensive if you could import.

Anyone heard of a small stern (IO) drive unit at reasonable cost. Would act as stern truster as well. Maybe could use the engine for hydralic purposes like winch etc. as well.

The wing motor thing is less attractive because of mechanics and NO stern truster.

Kingfish
New Orleans
 
Kingfish

My last trawler was a single screw with a get home system. I used it one time from 40 miles offshore. It went like this:

There was a large pump on the front of the 7.5 Kw Onan generator with an electric clutch. Kind of like a truck power steering. A two belt pulley was added to the front of the generator. The pump bracket allowed me to change fan belts.

On top of the main transmission there was a bracket that held a hydraulic motor. The motor had a chain sprocket. Another chain sprocket was sandwiched in the coupling between the transmission and the propeller shaft.

When I needed the come home I added a special size 60 chain to the sprockets with a repair link and turned on the generator and power to the clutch.

My boat was an 8 knot boat and came home at about 4 knots with this set up.

I don't think anyone made this come home system as a production. I think the previous owner sort of copied the idea and made this one from bits and pieces.

If I had a single engine trawler I would want a set up like this.:D
 
We have a Westerbeke 8kw genet with a hydraulic pump that powers a stern thruster. It can be turned 90 degrees and dropped down for a get home system. I wouldn't depend upon it in anything more than moderate wind/waves conditions, but it will run until I rum out of diesel.
 
If you are that worried about a single screw breaking down, you might consider twins. Piece of mind trumps cost everyday.
 
If you are that worried about a single screw breaking down, you might consider twins. Piece of mind trumps cost everyday.


Oh for all that is sacred and good in the world don't get that started again!

HOLLYWOOD :banghead:
 
Oh for all that is sacred and good in the world don't get that started again!

HOLLYWOOD :banghead:

I look at wing engine/get home power threads as a discussion between people owning/wanting twins...they are just discussing "application". :D
 
If you are worried get a twin.
otherwise don't worry.
If the engine is in good condition and well maintained it is nearly bullet proof.
Carry spare pump parts, starter motor and belts and all will be good.
Diesel engine , air, fuel and water that is all that is required.
Cheers
Benn
 
A stern drive left in salt water is a maintenance nightmare. I suggest you put that thought out of your mind now without wasting any more time on it.

My "Get home power" is my TowBoatUS card. Cheap and effective.
 
How was the hydraulic fluid cooled? How large was the fluid reservoir?

The reservoir was cylindrical on top and part of the pump. I would say the system held between 1 and 2 gallons. The fluid was cooled through a small exchanger in the generator raw water intake. :socool:
 
Outboard bracket on the swim platform or stern, guess it all depends on how far it takes to get you home, like one other OP stated, a good tow plan is cheap insurance for get home.
 
I look at wing engine/get home power threads as a discussion between people owning/wanting twins...they are just discussing "application". :D

Indeed. You don't need to have a yacht to have twin screw ... a trawler will do fine. I'm probably out as finding a 30' twin screw diesel boat is not likely. But I'd pass on a twin like a 36 GB, IG, or any similar as they are all overpowered. Just because they have the same engines as the single. You want economy at 7 knots and you're not going to get it w 740 cu in of engine.

But for get home there's nothing like a twin.
 
If you are worried get a twin.
otherwise don't worry.
If the engine is in good condition and well maintained it is nearly bullet proof.
Carry spare pump parts, starter motor and belts and all will be good.
Diesel engine , air, fuel and water that is all that is required.
Cheers
Benn

Not sure if I want to lug around a spare starter, but the one of the most important spare parts for a diesel are FILTERS.

We have a single CAT, 2000+ hours and have never needed assitance getting home.
 
I don't man to be rude but why don't you take night classes in marine diesel maintenance.
Diesel engines are the most reliable engines in the world, in our family business we have truck engines with over 500,00 miles (3 have gone up to a million miles) without rebuild, Mercedes, Scania and Iveco and pumping sets with Ford or Perkins up to 25 yrs old working daily.
Most boat engine problems are from lack of use and untrained people 'fixing' them.
Apologies for being direct but there's no room for ambiguity.
 
I don't man to be rude but why don't you take night classes in marine diesel maintenance.
Diesel engines are the most reliable engines in the world, in our family business we have truck engines with over 500,00 miles (3 have gone up to a million miles) without rebuild, Mercedes, Scania and Iveco and pumping sets with Ford or Perkins up to 25 yrs old working daily.
Most boat engine problems are from lack of use and untrained people 'fixing' them.
Apologies for being direct but there's no room for ambiguity.

:thumb:
 
I don't man to be rude but why don't you take night classes in marine diesel maintenance.
Diesel engines are the most reliable engines in the world, in our family business we have truck engines with over 500,00 miles (3 have gone up to a million miles) without rebuild, Mercedes, Scania and Iveco and pumping sets with Ford or Perkins up to 25 yrs old working daily.
Most boat engine problems are from lack of use and untrained people 'fixing' them.
Apologies for being direct but there's no room for ambiguity.


Rambler

There is a bigger picture here. Went out in the Gulf of Mexico and anchored in 30 feet of water at green buoy about 40 miles out of Galveston to fish the weekend. That night the seas were about 4-6 feet. Woke up, started the engine and moved to another fishing hole. Seemed like the engine had a hard time starting. On to the next fishing hole and the engine wouldn't start. Went to the engine room and the starter was smoking. Engine had gotten some water in it during the night and lucky it started the first time. Pulled the starter and opened it up and bits of solder and stuff flew everywhere. I'm a mechanical engineer, and good mechanic, but you can't fix something without parts. My come home saved the day.:)
 
...at boat shows, people would occasionally ask if we would build our Great Harbours with single engines (we actually did build ONE that way.) If they seemed to have even the least bit of a sense of humor, I would tell them, "Yes, but it would be installed off-center in the engine room - oh, and for no-extra charge, we'll include a wing engine just like it on the other side."
 
obthomas,
If I was to rig up a get home I'd use a chain drive off to the side of the prop shaft probably electrically powered. Or hydraulic along w an hydraulic anchor winch.

I think one could set up a gasoline air cooled engine stored dry. Test run every 6 months to a year. Stored dry it should start when needed. No water cooling and pull chord start. May need a clutch though but maybe not. It's for the KISS club. Should be better than an outboard on the swim step.
 
boat-oarsone-completely-upright-one-leaning_FF_Model_ID13533_1_oars01_thumb.jpg
 
While I'm not quite sure the marine recreational industry is ready yet, i believe that diesel electric setups will eventually be the answer here.

1.) You can generate charge from any number of diesel engines. Singular or in combination. (Main1, Main2, Generator).

2.) You can send that electrical current wherever you want/need it. (Prop 1, Prop 2, Inverter, Batteries)

3.) If one prop/motor fails, you don't lose the redundancy of the engine itself, just because its drive train is hosed.

It seems like a combination that would offer the most redundancy in case of failures. If you wind up with bad fuel, that could still impact all engines, but you only need to get filters changed on one engine before you can run both/all props/thrusters.

Electric motors of this size have been around for a long time, but have come a long way just in recent memory in being ideal for these kinds of systems.

If I could have a single diesel and a moderate size generator, with twin screw driven by independent electric motors, I think that combination would have some real advantages.
 
Ghost-I have addressed this before, I spent several years looking at the precise setup you describe. To the point of spending time with Siemens engineers (they have done this since about 1890!), and having a design and engineering preliminary drawings done. There are advantages/disadvantages to the setup. The most often cited advantage, lower fuel usage, turns out not to be true. Fuel burn rates would only be 2-5% better over a standard twin diesel setup. There are complexity issues in the control system needed to manage the power and its transmission to the electric motors. Siemens has a very good computer controlled system, but it ain't cheap. For a 58', approx. 50 ton FD trawler, the main engine needed to be about 375 HP or about a 30KW generator. This would power two electric motors connected directly to the prop shafts, i.e. no transmission (the electric motors simply reverse). Standard configuration in a trawler this size is usually 2 generators, about a 20KW and a 5-8KW. As a get home, the 20KW would be used. It could power one or both shafts at about 55-60% of max power. Our estimates were that this basic configuration would be about $200-250,000 more than a standard twin engine installation. As an aside, even with a very, very substantial battery bank, travel distance on batteries alone was so negligible a to be immaterial.

We found two major benefits: (1) all diesels, the main and the two gennies, can be placed anywhere in the ER that is convenient, and sealed in soundproof enclosures. The noise reduction is substantial, and (2) the ER, at least in our design, would be about 20-25% smaller than in a standard twin diesel configuration.

Although we decided it cost too much for us to do a custom build in this configuration, I am a bit surprised more such systems are not in the market. I haven't really looked at the few that are so I don't really know what kind of setup they are using.
 
... There are complexity issues in the control system needed to manage the power and its transmission to the electric motors. ....

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There is a good article in an old PMM.

A 34' Mainship w twin engines and a single shaft (as I recall) was the subject of the project. Diesel electric bus components were used. Worked very well. But probably wasn't very economical to purchase and install. The project was aimed at re-powering.

Must have been some significant downside as I've not heard of it since.
 
Celebrity Millenium is electric propulsed by electric Azipods.

Celebrity Millennium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

GTS Millennium is the flagship of the Millennium-class cruise ships, operated by Celebrity Cruises line. Her sister ships are Constellation, Infinity, and Summit.
She was built at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in St. Nazaire, France. When launched in 2000, Millennium was the world's first ship to use a turbo-electric COGAS power plant. Combined gas and steam (COGAS) is the name given to marine compound powerplants comprising gas and steam turbines, the latter being driven by steam generated using the heat from the exhaust of the gas turbines. In this way, some of the otherwise lost energy can be reclaimed and the specific fuel consumption of the plant can be decreased.
Millennium has a restaurant that contains wooden panels originally used in the RMS Olympic (sister ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic and RMS Britannic), removed and preserved when that ship was sold for scrap in 1935.
Sources of food include a two level main dining room, called "Metropolitan", and a buffet that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner on deck 10.
Sources of entertainment include the Celebrity Theatre, in which musical shows, comedians, or big-screen movies can be seen. The theatre is also used for gathering people on excursions, as well as informative talks. Another source is the cinema, located on the third deck. This is used for informative talks as well as daily movies.
Millennium was docked in Athens, Greece, on September 11, 2001, and went into high-security lock-down upon receipt of news regarding the September 11 attacks in the USA.[3] A Celebrity Cruises-sponsored marketing event onboard was in progress but it was curtailed and everyone except passengers and crew were removed from the ship. All other passenger activities except food service were cancelled. The following day, while at sea, a small private plane began to circle the ship, causing panic among several passengers on deck. The plane eventually flew away.[citation needed]
In May 2011, a female passenger in her sixties was declared missing when she failed to disembark at a port call in San Diego. Security cameras on the ship showed that she deliberately jumped off the ship in the waters between Cabo San Lucas and San Diego.[4][5]
After the ship's voyage from Miami to Roatan, Honduras, to Cozumel, Mexico, and back to Miami (April 16–21, 2012), the ship went to dry-dock in the Bahamas for 3-weeks to be renovated.
Depending on the season, the ship visits the following destinations: Alaska from Vancouver and Seward during the summer season, Hawaii and South Pacific Ocean in fall and Southeast Asia from Singapore and Hong Kong during the winter season.
On August 9, 2013, an engine problem occurred aboard the ship, causing a delayed arrival in Seward. After arriving, the Millennium then had to stay in port until August 13, 2013. This caused a drastic change to its following itinerary, originally planned to call at the Alaskan ports of Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan. That cruise was shortened and the ship then proceed southbound to Vancouver without any ports of call. Passengers sailing on that voyage were provided a big variety of compensations as well as options; either to stay aboard the ship during its repairs at Seward, or to opt for a full refund. During the Sunday while the ship was undergoing repairs, Seward had two ships docked in port in total, the other ship being Holland America Line's Zaandam.
On August 18, 2013, after leaving Ketchikan on its northward voyage, another engine problem occurred forcing the ship to return to Ketchikan that evening. The U.S. Coast Guard required the engine problem to be repaired before the ship could set sail again with passengers. After several days of attempting repairs, the remainder of the voyage was canceled and Celebrity arranged for all passengers to be flown to Seattle, Vancouver or Anchorage. Customers were compensated similarly to those on the previous weeks cruise. The next 5 cruises on the schedule were also canceled as the ship sailed to their Bahamas dry-dock for major repairs to the Rolls-Royce Mermaid propulsion pod.


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...at boat shows, people would occasionally ask if we would build our Great Harbours with single engines (we actually did build ONE that way.) If they seemed to have even the least bit of a sense of humor, I would tell them, "Yes, but it would be installed off-center in the engine room - oh, and for no-extra charge, we'll include a wing engine just like it on the other side."

You jest, Eric, but don't think that I haven't imagined an N-37 with a port side main (84 HP) with a larger rudder, and leave the 56 HP standard starboard. From what I recall, you can nearly get hull speed out of one 56 HP, yes? I can see you laughing and shaking your head at why people don't leave a good thing be. But you have to admit,....there are no sub-100 hp diesel twin trawlers that I can think of made in the last 20 years around here, unless you include catamarans. Do you have many owners that run on one engine.....switching to the other and back again, etc.. How do the 37's perform on one engine?
 
A stern drive left in salt water is a maintenance nightmare. I suggest you put that thought out of your mind now without wasting any more time on it.

My "Get home power" is my TowBoatUS card. Cheap and effective.

:thumb::thumb::thumb:
 
Lagoon tried to do electric drive units on some of their sailing catamarans and it was a epic failure.. the idea was to use gensets mounted in the bridge deck to drive electric motors. I believe they have all been converted back to standard diesel propulsion. I think electric drive works well for the big azipod drives on already power hungry cruise ships as more/less generators can be phased on/off as needed.

HOLLYWOOD
 

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