Stand up engine room

The engine room on the centerline of our DF44 is perhaps 5'10" forward, tapering only slightly as you move aft. Our batteries are outboard of the engines, but I haven't found a job yet I couldn't access. A lot of internal volume for a boat in this size range, plus generous room in other places that matter--the sundeck, aft cabin and flybridge are full width and larger than on any mid-40s-ft boat I've been on. An amazing architectural feat by Arthur Defever. We know a guy with a DF48 who lowered his engine room floor slightly, taking advantage of the gap between the floor supports and the curve of the bilge. He's over 6 feet and can stand straight.



There is a 1999 Defever 44 named Gondola that has just come on the market that seems especially well maintained. No affiliation whatsoever.

Greetings,
Mr. 99,
Height aside THAT'S a nice ER!

We do not have a stand-up engine room, and I'd like one. OTOH, I would rank easy 360° engine access as more important than stand-up height. Full access to the overhead set is another I'd rank higher.

I can enter through a day hatch from the cockpit, crouch (just a little) until in place, and sit comfortably on a toolbox and do anything required on the inboard side of each engine. Outboard side... not so much... and using this approach, overhead set, not so much either. Minimal stand-up height wouldn't fix that.

OTOH, I can remove the hatches in the saloon sole, for complete access to the overhead set, top of the heat exchangers, etc... and so far, that's always been periodic in-port maintenance. With those hatches lifted, I have better access to the outboard sides, too, but that's still not perfect.

I would trade better outboard access for stand-up height.

Although having my cake and eating it too would be great!

-Chris

So many great points that I had not considered. Wow - thanks!
We are so thrilled at this new year to be joining your ranks. No more Maine winters-

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. 99,
Height aside THAT'S a nice ER!

Click to expand...

Thanks, Mr. RT. The PO took exceptional care of the ER. There's even more room without the oil bucket and tool boxes, which I'm replacing with a large tool chest opposite the genny.

Greetings,
Ms. Mt. A Marine Trader 50' has 2 engine "rooms" with stand up height but I don't know how old that particular model may be. Definitely NOT built to Nordhavn standards or capabilities. One can remove the inboard bulkheads that allows almost unlimited access to parts of the engines. Just a thought.

angus99 said:

Click to expand...

HOLY CRAP!!!!

WANT!

Based on the tips we have been given, we are expanding our trawler search to the other kinds praised in this thread, instead of just focusing on Norhavn
and Kadey Krogen. Thanks so much.

Tom.B said:

HOLY CRAP!!!!

WANT!

Click to expand...

Sorry 99 for stealing your thunder ---

Yes, we love our DFs for many reasons. On our 48 the overhead hatches are easily removed if one ever needed to change out some heavy iron or batteries. Normal ER access is through a heavy duty bulkhead door. Note the fuel manifold on the aft bulkhead, it manages four tanks (in the 48's case), 3 engines, fuel transfer and polishing if one desires.

The 44/50 and 48 DFs are aft cabins so ER height is a bit more than the PH designs, but lacking a few feet of additional ER length.

A well tended DF is a work of Art!

In the older Hatteras MY with semi displacement hulls each engine had it own room. SO if making the engines comfy is your priority I suggest checking them out.

>More great points. I will add these features to our "must have" list.<

A must have list if long enough will require a new build , as few boats have >everything<.

Far better to look at all suitable boats with a,, NO NOT ME NEVER,, list , so there can be compromises.

On my must have list would be real marine fuel tanks , with a working sump, not a box of fuel.

That lets out about 99% of stock boats.

Next propane refrigeration , to have cold or frozen for months on end cruising with no noisemaker.

Next a RV toilet over the holding tank , so a flush is a cup of water.

Transom would be full width and fold down like pick up truck.EZ to step aboard , and if fully slid in to the cockpit the dink dink would be EZ to carry/launch , hard to steal , and till the gas ran out a get home engine instantly available.

With a second crew it could also be a 50 hp stern thruster!

Finally a very wide centerboard trunk with a board that could be power pivoted from side to side to work as a stabilizer .
Run aground , no new hole in the boat or problems from bent stuff.

Since no boats in the world meet my Desirements ,

its far easier to wander with a list of only things I simply could not accept .

Of course I will need to hit the lottery first , but then it would be a new build for sure.

sunchaser said:

Sorry 99 for stealing your thunder ---

Yes, we love our DFs for many reasons. On our 48 the overhead hatches are easily removed if one ever needed to change out some heavy iron or batteries. Normal ER access is through a heavy duty bulkhead door. Note the fuel manifold on the aft bulkhead, it manages four tanks (in the 48's case), 3 engines, fuel transfer and polishing if one desires.

The 44/50 and 48 DFs are aft cabins so ER height is a bit more than the PH designs, but lacking a few feet of additional ER length.

A well tended DF is a work of Art!

Click to expand...

No worries, Sunchaser. You described the access benefits well. I didn't see your post until after I had posted a couple ER door photos on the other engine room thread.

Stand up engine rooms are great, the only problem is they are usually full of systems that need maintaining. Keep it as simple as you can.

normandawn1 said:

Stand up engine rooms are great, the only problem is they are usually full of systems that need maintaining. Keep it as simple as you can.

Click to expand...

OK I'll bite, what MV systems don't need maintaining?

sunchaser said:

OK I'll bite, what MV systems don't need maintaining?

Click to expand...

The absent ones.

Yep they all need maintenance, but the fewer systems you have the less you'll have to do. We have been living ten years aboard. No Hydrulics, No watermaker, No fuel manifolds. Basic 12v electrics. and we do it pretty comfortably.
No stand up engine room either I must add.

I was aboard a 62' Nordhvn this morning a big engine room but not full head room. The owner suggested that when at sea it was better to sit beside the Lugger than stand up. Which could be a valid point.http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/images/trawler/smilies/sk/thumb.gif

Yep they all need maintenance, but the fewer systems you have the less you'll have to do. We have been living ten years aboard. No Hydrulics, No watermaker, No fuel manifolds. Basic 12v electrics. and we do it pretty comfortably.
No stand up engine room either I must add.

I was aboard a 62' Nordhvn this morning a big engine room but not full head room. The owner suggested that when at sea it was better to sit beside the Lugger than stand up. Which could be a valid point.

Well Norman I don't have sails to maintain but do have a fuel manifold. Still trying to figure out the required maintenance on that pesky manifold.

On a more serious note I agree with you 100%, many boat things are just not necessary. But not necessary for me is vital in someone else's mind. Free will keeps the electronics guys advertising that is for sure.

You're right there.
I guess it just freaks me out when i get into an engine room chock full of gear, wondering how the hell I would look after it. As you say everyone has different ideas regarding what they need.

Mainetrawler said:

I can tell we are about to join a fabulous community; what great new neighbors - thanks to all of you for this incredibly helpful advice.
My husband plans on doing all most of the engine maintenance himself.
The furthest we are planning to cruise is the Bahamas and Nova Scotia. We are not planning to cruise the ICW.
I will definitely buy him a set of knee pads! We had not considered those other brands that have just been mentioned but I will begin researching them now. Also, we are enamored by John Deere engines from great experience with them on the farm.
We would like to be able to age in place on the boat and be able to cruise for the next 10 years for sure.
We hope to attend the Florida Trawlerfest later this month. So far we have only been on a Nordhavn 40.
So we are looking for a great safe reliable trawler for our cruising plans, with a stand up engine room and great liveability. Keep the advice coming please - it is all welcome. We need to get this right in a relatively short time frame - 6 months. This is because we didn't have the "sell everything move aboard a trawler" epiphany until late last October.

Click to expand...

I would take a step back and look at your use of the boat and your priorities.

How much time do you expect to be in the engine room? As liveaboards, I find the Krogen to have better compromise between engine room and living area. The reality is that you will spend minutes in the Engine room, compared to days in the rest of boat.

Knee pads and a stool are a great solution, as I find if I need to spend any time in the ER, I like sitting.

Good luck and you have many great boats to choose from.

Richard.

I take it you like torture, bumping your head, burning your digits, cramps, sore back, lifting hatches when underway, torn ACL, claustrophobia, and the S&G song "hello darkness my old friend?" But, for those of with twins a big airy ER is needed. Oops, wrong thread.

>OK I'll bite, what MV systems don't need maintaining?<

All systems eventually need to be maintained even if its just with just PM .

QUALITY does count , a Groco K or Skipper manual head may need love from a liveaboard every 1,000 days.

Cheap stuff would be 10X the maint.

Simple and high quality will be the key ,while cruising , weather you are sipping Mohitos or PB Blaster.

FF, this stuff works great on rusted threaded fittings but never thought about using it for happy hour.

As I was reading the posts in this thread, I was having some of the same thoughts that heal hustler wrote about.

When we started looking for a trawler I was sure we were going to settle on a Krogen or a Nordhavn. Ultimately the Selene was a far better fit for us. You do give a lot for seakeeping abilities that up and down the Eastern seaboard you won't necessarily need (also our cruising grounds).

In regards to your original question about stand up engine room. I agree with others, that you give up the space elsewhere, furthermore:
1. If I'm at a dock working in the engine room, I'm sitting or kneeling anyway. Chances are I'll be there a while.
2. At sea we check the engine room every two hours, in there for what 5 minutes
3. At sea, the most common reason (for us anyway) to stay in the engine room longer than usual is to change a fuel filter. I'm not going to balance myself and do it anyway. I want to be wedged or against something, and again I won't be standing up, probably kneeling.

These are my experiences so far, but I am looking at it with 40 year old eyes, hips and knees.

When you get out there let me know, sooner or later we are bound to pass each other!

So there you have it, if you don't have a roomy ER you love it anyway. If you do have a roomy ER the rest of the boat suffers from shortages of space. OK, I get it, I guess.

He have a crap ton of space with our stand up ER.

sunchaser said:

So there you have it, if. . . you do have a roomy ER the rest of the boat suffers from shortages of space. OK, I get it, I guess.

Click to expand...

I am still puzzled by the idea that additional vertical clearance in the engine room diminishes space somewhere else. On my boat, like many, my salon is above the engine room. And guess what, I have a stand up salon!!! I don't think its height is compromised one bit to make room for the additional headroom afforded to the ER. And above the salon is the boat deck, which is not vertically constrained by anything except the stratosphere. Similarly, none of the areas forward or aft of the engine room are sized any differently as a result of the ER height.

As for the idea that one can happily sit or kneel while in the engine room, I think that misses the reality that the harder it is to do something (like make a thorough visual inspection of everything in the engine room) the less frequently and less thoroughly it will be done, everything else being equal. Certainly more frequent and thorough inspections of all equipment in the ER is a good thing.

All of that being said, I acknowledge that having a stand-up ER is a luxury and the only real question is how important is that luxury. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.

After being on, owning, cruising and working inside decent sized if not commodious ERs, I would not have it any other way. Generally though the boat has to be above 46' before a roomy ER can artfully be designed.

A few years ago we were seriously looking at boats including Selenes. The 53 and 57 ERs were cramped but the "deep hull" 58 was right sized. Design improvement by Howard Chen for sure as owner feedback came in to him. Tough call on the designer's part as looks and living space vs machinery space gets twisted and pulled.

I'm not sure how to answer as I would only be telling you what I like. A boat in this size range is all about compromises. I see red flags when anybody, at any stage, has to get the boat right in one go. It's typical that the compromises that are made would change once the reality of how a boat is usually used gets established as opposed to a dream or initial vision.

That said, I can tell you that systems that are accessible are maintained better than those that are not. Personally, I'm a fan of having room to get around an engine on all sides, but at the small size of 48 feet my current boat forces me to lay atop of my engines and sometimes work by feel. Doesn't happen much, bug it can. If I were coastal cruising, I don't worry about it. If I were passage making, I would insist on having a more simple ability to get at anything.

I think you need to really think about trade offs, not just what is nice to have. Simplicity should be the goal. It's harder than it seems.

MYTraveler said:

I am still puzzled by the idea that additional vertical clearance in the engine room diminishes space somewhere else. On my boat, like many, my salon is above the engine room. And guess what, I have a stand up salon!!! I don't think its height is compromised one bit to make room for the additional headroom afforded to the ER. And above the salon is the boat deck, which is not vertically constrained by anything except the stratosphere. Similarly, none of the areas forward or aft of the engine room are sized any differently as a result of the ER height.



As for the idea that one can happily sit or kneel while in the engine room, I think that misses the reality that the harder it is to do something (like make a thorough visual inspection of everything in the engine room) the less frequently and less thoroughly it will be done, everything else being equal. Certainly more frequent and thorough inspections of all equipment in the ER is a good thing.



All of that being said, I acknowledge that having a stand-up ER is a luxury and the only real question is how important is that luxury. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.

Click to expand...

Northern Marine was also puzzled why adding space in one area should have to impact spaces elsewhere.