Marin wrote:Daddyo wrote:
Over 90% of sudden engine shut downs are due to fuel issues so both would be effected usually.
I think that is a totally incorrect assumtion.* With one exception EVERY engine shutdown that has occured to us or people we know has been due to cooling issues, not fuel issues.* The one exception was when I made an error during a fuel transfer and one of the engines got a big slug of air and quit.* Not wanting to bleed it in the rough-ish water we were in and needing to get our guests home by a certain time we tied off the shaft and came home on one.
But cooling issues, I think, are far more likely to be a problem with an engine than fuel unless one lives in a place where lousy fuel is the norm, not the exception.* I have talked to people who have had a problem with the fuel system on an engine, and we've had one--- a pinholed injection pipe.* But in all these cases, the problem was with one engine (or their only engine) and in all the cases we know of the engine did not have to be shut down.
So in my opinion, this notion that bad fuel causes both engines of a twin to shut down, while certainly theoretically possible, is something that rarely occurs in reality.
Most commercial fishing boats have one engine because (a) it's a big engine, (b) it's less expensive to run one engine instead of two and expenses are a major deal to commercial fishermen, (c) the designs of the boats make one engine the ideal configuration, (d) the engine in a commercial fishing boat is pretty easy to access and service and (d) the engines receive the sort of maintenance that's required to keep it running reliably, in no small part because it's so easy to access the engine.
*We have had three engine shutdowns over the years. The first was due to debris in the raw water impeller, the second was a plugged suction line to the raw water strainer, and the third was due to improperly installed (by a professional diesel mechanic) belts that ran, among other things, the raw water pump.
Have had water in the fuel tanks, but this was caught via regular filter checks.