View Single Post
Old 11-04-2011, 01:32 PM   #73
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
What would you do?

A fully agree a twin is not NEEDED on a boat, unless it's a big ship that wants to go fast (aircraft carrier, cruise ship, etc.). Having two engines in a recreational boat is indeed, a convenience. So is owning a car. I don't NEED it--- I could walk the 35 miles to work every day or spend three hours taking buses. Everybody's experience is different, but having benefited greatly from having a second engine on the boat four times (so far) while I certainly don't say people with single-engine boats are taking a chance or are wrong, I would never want one myself anymore. Even on our little Arima fishing boat, I'd never given a thought to it being a single engine boat for the past 24 years until this past spring when the 90hp Yamaha quit some 22 miles from our base in an area up in BC with zip-zero-nada radio or phone coverage. It was very nice to be able to fire up the kicker motor and go home, albeit slowly. And as it turned out, the reason the big motor quit was far beyond any sort of on-board repair. So it was either come home on some other source of power or drift around hoping another boat would pass by (very rare in these particular waters) before the wind and current put the boat on the rocks.

So you're right--- you or anyone else will never convince me that a single-engine boat is anything I want a part of. And people with single-engine boats who have not experienced a shutdown and subsequent grounding because a tow didn't arrive soon enough will never be convinced of the value of a twin. :-)

The icebreaker story simply proves my point.* Had it been a single screw vessel, the trip would have been over when the ship lost the engine unless they'd been able to fix it.* As it was, they were able to continue the voyage on the other engine.* Sounds like a pretty ringing endorsement for having more than one engine to me :-)


-- Edited by Marin on Friday 4th of November 2011 02:36:47 PM
Marin is offline   Reply With Quote