Sailor going Trawler for health reasons.

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wndsnd

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2012
Messages
31
Location
USA
Vessel Name
Largo
Vessel Make
Fales Caribe 30
I can't do it anymore. I took a deposit on my 37 foot sloop that I have owned and cruised on the last 10 years. I am looking for a trawler, probably 30-36 feet. Single Diesel, for fuel economics. I am so new to this I am looking for recommendations. I want dependable with minimal outside wood to take care of. It seems that the Island Gypsies get good reviews, however I am on the east coast and find the selection scarce.

I would like to hear from anyone thats gone down my road, and get advice.

Thank you for all your help.
 
What is your budget range for $$$? I would give the Monk 36 a good look. I have a 1983 model for sale and while she does not have teak decks, her windows are trimmed in teak so you may want a newer model- late 1990's and 2000's basically have no exterior teak at all. The Mainship 350/390 is also a good alternative. Lots of boat for the money. There is a very affordably priced Island Gypsy 32 here in the classified section of these forums.
Let us know your budget and we can narrow down some options. Everyone here loves helping others spend their boating money! :)

Welcome to trawlerforum.
 
Greetings,
Welcome aboard Mr. w. (wndsnd is a bit too long for me to hunt and peck). You may be new to the "stinkpot" side of things but you already have 10 years before the mast.
 
I am thinking 60-80K, but I have no problem with a 35K boat!
 
Greetings,
Welcome aboard Mr. w. (wndsnd is a bit too long for me to hunt and peck). You may be new to the "stinkpot" side of things but you already have 10 years before the mast.

I have been on the water all my life but all sail. I cruise Massachusetts to Mount Desert Island yearly.

No need to hunt and peck. My name is John B. and wndsnd is short for Windsound which is on her way to a new home!

I appreciate the quick reply's and the help.:Thanx:
 
What is your budget range for $$$? I would give the Monk 36 a good look. I have a 1983 model for sale and while she does not have teak decks, her windows are trimmed in teak so you may want a newer model- late 1990's and 2000's basically have no exterior teak at all. The Mainship 350/390 is also a good alternative. Lots of boat for the money. There is a very affordably priced Island Gypsy 32 here in the classified section of these forums.
Let us know your budget and we can narrow down some options. Everyone here loves helping others spend their boating money! :)

Welcome to trawlerforum.


Your Monk is beautifull, but I am afraid out of my price range.
 
We are sailors that moved on to power. When we had our 35' sloop we motored more than we sailed. Don't brush off the twins. We have 2 perkins 4-236 that will do hull speed sipping just over a gallon an hour each.
 
...wndsnd is short for Windsound which is on her way to a new home!

Then I guess you're going to need a name change soon. The's little wind sound underway on our boats.

Maybe dlssnd? prknssnd? lhmnsnd?
 
Lots of us went to the dark side on a budget. My vintage MT 34 cost me a little over $30k six years ago, complete with a thruster, working radar, AC, decent canvas, a genset, etc. Typically it'll run you another 10k to get one of these project boats insurable and ready for cruising, but I think there are lot of similar boats are out there that have good bones but likely with a bunch of cosmetic, electrical, and related issues. If you are handy, and don't mind getting your hands dirty, finding a trawler on the east coast should be a process of elimination, but there are many choices. Study the many threads here on the issues of leaky windows, teak decks, iron fuel tanks.. and good hunting!
 
Like work?

many boats in FL are about 1/2 price compared to the rest of the US.

However they may need work from lack of maint.

If dirty hands are part of boating , you may find a deal.

FF
 
We changed from sail to trawler this year. Love our new boat. We do miss sailing a little. We plan on getting a sailing dink to take care of that though.
 
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Lots of us went to the dark side on a budget. My vintage MT 34 cost me a little over $30k six years ago, complete with a thruster, working radar, AC, decent canvas, a genset, etc. Typically it'll run you another 10k to get one of these project boats insurable and ready for cruising, but I think there are lot of similar boats are out there that have good bones but likely with a bunch of cosmetic, electrical, and related issues. If you are handy, and don't mind getting your hands dirty, finding a trawler on the east coast should be a process of elimination, but there are many choices. Study the many threads here on the issues of leaky windows, teak decks, iron fuel tanks.. and good hunting!


Well I always expect to do some work, I am mechanically inclined and don't shy away, but that weing said, I am looking for the most complete and sorted out boat to start with. Working on a Trawler compared to my sloop where there was no room for anything will be a welcome relief.
 
My very good friends Sold there 40ft Jeanue and Made the move,It gave them 30 inches more water to run in, Bridges 20 feet they can sneak under not just ones over 54 feet, But i will say there sail boat had a 85 hp Yanmar and it would run 7-9 mph at 2800 rpms, burn .7 gph at that speed. I motor sailed it and did 8 hours burning .44 gph. they have 3 times the room and you can get to the engine with out taking the boat apart. Pros and Cons they didnt get a faster boat but gained room for storage and fuel burn went up to about 1.5 Gph. So its a personal thing.
 
You can definitely find a decent boat in the $60k-$80k range but it may not be exactly what you envision when you say "trawler." If it is, it will most likely be an older boat, perhaps one that needs a fair amount of work to bring it up to snuff, cosmetically if nothing else.

There are brands some don't consider at first when they start thinking about getting into "trawlering." Bayliner, Tollycraft, and Uniflite are three production boats that can provide one with a lot of good boat for the money. All three were made in the PNW so up here you trip over them every time you turn around, and there are lots of them for sale all the time with a wide variety of models and conditions to choose from. I don't know about their popularity, availability, and pricing in other parts of the country.
 
I have been asked, why Trawler? And, why single engine. Well for me in my initial learning curve here, I am thinking economics. It looks like 2 GPH is the magic number for economical cruising. I would be content with 7 knots, but what worries me is the single screw, small rudder control. If there is an other design to consider, I am open to it. I see sedan's listed, but am unsure what traits make it a sedan, or sedan trawler?

For this reason only, I would consider a twin. But, twice as many things to take care off and maintain.

I live in a very tidal, coastal area, with strong currents exceeding 4 knots on the flow. Being a sailor I am used to cruising on the hook, so the single screw should be adequate for that. I worry about the times I will need to dock, for fuel, water, repairs, in small Maine towns and not have the menuverability. Thank you for all your great comments.

I guess I need to hire a Captain to show me the ropes (lines!). It would be nice to be able to pay someone to take me out on a couple of set ups and teach me the pros and cons before I buy.
 
I poked around Yachtworld last night and there are many 20-25 YO boats that fit your bill. I like the twins, yes more to deal with but you have a come home engine if something breaks. And the docking is totally awesome! Docking is nothing more than working the transmissions. Only quirky think I have to deal with is have 2 left-hand transmissions. You get used to it. I might be a hair over your 2GPH for my 4-236s but not much. Look around and you will find something. We did pretty well on our 37 year old Gulfstar and have clocked nearly 500 KM so far this summer with only a few minor issues.
 
WNDSND -- sent you a Private Message. It should show up at the top right of this page under the TF banner after you log in.

Thanks,
DVD
 
I would be content with 7 knots, but what worries me is the single screw, small rudder control.

It's been my observation--- and it's certainly the case with GBs--- that single engine cruisers have rudders that are sized properly for the requirements of maneuverability. The rudder on a single-engine GB is considerably larger than either of the rudders on the twin-engine version of the same boat. We chartered a single engine GB36 before buying our own, which happened to be a twin. I didn't notice any difference in manerverability as far as the rudder(s) go between them.

The twin allows one to oppose prop thrust which lets you pivot the boat pretty much in its own length and do some other maneuvers in less time and using less space (sometimes) than doing the same maneuver in a single. And of course a bow thruster lets you do not only what you can do with a twin but some things you can't do with a twin.

But in terms of rudder authority, I don't think there's much difference usually between a single and twin engine version of the same boat. If you look at single-engine boats like Willards, Nordic Tugs, Krogens, Nordhavns, Victory Tugs, single-engine GBs, etc. I think you will see that their rudders are pretty large.
 
Fords

Local Westerbeke guy came to survey my sailboat engine for my sale and while he was here I asked him if he had any engine recommendations for me while I am looking at Trawlers. He told me to stay away from Ford Lehmans for expensive and hard to get parts. I have not heard of this yet so I thought I would ask the forum for engine opinions as well. Given equal hours and maintenance, are there some engines that have a particularly bad reputation and why?
 
I'd go along with the advice to stay away from Lehmans but not because parts are expensive or hard to get. Considering the age of these engines parts are actually very easy to get and the prices of the stuff we've had to buy for our FL120s over the years seem quite reasonable to me.

An engine to stay away from because of parts price and availability are Volvos although they are very good engines.

Most of the diesels in the kinds of boats those of us on this forum have are marinzed vehicular, industrial, or agricultural engines. As such, the base engines were very well proven by the time someone got around to marinzing them. John Deere, Cummins, Cat, Lugger (some of which are based on John Deere engines), Perkins, and Ford (of England) are all engines with a good track record on land. So assuming proper operation, servicing, and maintenance threre's no reason to expect the engines to be any less effective on water.

An engine I would be leery of just because it was not used by very many builders and so may have a parts and service issue at least in the US, is BMW. They were used in one of our favorite boats, the Lord Nelson Victory Tug. We were seriously considering one of these at one point but the turn-off for me was its BMW engine. Later Victory Tugs have Cummins engines but at the time these boats were still pretty new and so werel considerably more than we wanted to spend on a boat.

A lot of Baylners have Hino engines, which is a marinzed version of a Japanese diesel, I think perhaps Nissan but I could be wrong on that. I don't know of any other production boats in the US that used them but Bayliner used a LOT of them and so far as I have heard they are good engines. Don't know about parts availability or prices these days but it must be okay considering the number of Bayliners out and about with these engines..

Yanmars are popular around the world and parts and service are both readily available pretty much everywhere one would be boating on the planet.

The two-cycle Detroit engines, particularly the 6-71 and 8V-71, were used in a lot of cruisers from the 1940s on through the 1970s and maybe even into the 80s. First number is the number of cylinders, second number is the displacement of each cylinder. They are relative simple engines which translates into very high reliability. More so even than recreational boats Detroits have been used in landing craft, Navy launches, tugs, commercial fishing boats--- the list goes on. With at least a reasonable level of service and maintenance Detroits are kind of like the Energizer Bunny.

The downside of a Detroit is the noise and the fuel consumption, both of which are tied to the two-cycle nature of the engine. There are ways to reduce the noise. The fuel consumption is what it is.

I can only think of one marine diesel that is considered by pretty much everyone who comes in contact with it to be a piece of crap and that is a marinized version of a GM V-8. I don't remember the displacement but the land version was bad, too. It was an existing gas engine design that was adapted for diesel use in cars in (I think) the 1980s when diesel enjoyed a brief surge of interest in the US due to rising gas prices. GM put the engine in Cadillacs and some other models where it quickly earned a reputation of being rubbish in terms of reliability. The marinized version is no better. So stay away from that one.

With the rest of the makes, the way the engine has been operated and cared for by previous owners is WAY more important than the name on the builder's plate or even the number of hours on the Hobbs meter. In my opinion, I would rather buy a boat with engines with 6,000 hours on them and a history of being properly run and maintained than a boat with 2000 hours on the engines but a history of hard or abusive running and poor service and maintenance.

With the possible exception of the BMW and GM diesels, I suspect all the other makes I've mentioned are owned by at least some members of this forum. So they can chime in with specific opinions or experiences with them. The only engine of the bunch I have had direct experience with is the Ford Lehman 120 but I've always been interested in engines so have tried to learn at least something about many of them.
 
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I'd go along with the advice to stay away from Lehmans but not because parts are expensive or hard to get. Considering the age of these engines parts are actually very easy to get and the prices of the stuff we've had to buy for our FL120s over the years seem quite reasonable to me.

An engine to stay away from because of parts price and availability are Volvos although they are very good engines.

Most of the diesels in the kinds of boats those of us on this forum have are marinzed vehicular, industrial, or agricultural engines. As such, the base engines were very well proven by the time someone got around to marinzing them. John Deere, Cummins, Cat, Lugger (some of which are based on John Deere engines), Perkins, and Ford (of England) are all engines with a good track record on land. So assuming proper operation, servicing, and maintenance threre's no reason to expect the engines to be any less effective on water.

An engine I would be leery of just because it was not used by very many builders and so may have a parts and service issue at least in the US, is BMW. They were used in one of our favorite boats, the Lord Nelson Victory Tug. We were seriously considering one of these at one point but the turn-off for me was its BMW engine. Later Victory Tugs have Cummins engines but at the time these boats were still pretty new and so werel considerably more than we wanted to spend on a boat.

A lot of Baylners have Hino engines, which is a marinzed version of a Japanese diesel, I think perhaps Nissan but I could be wrong on that. I don't know of any other production boats in the US that used them but Bayliner used a LOT of them and so far as I have heard they are good engines. Don't know about parts availability or prices these days but it must be okay considering the number of Bayliners out and about with these engines..

Yanmars are popular around the world and parts and service are both readily available pretty much everywhere one would be boating on the planet.

The two-cycle Detroit engines, particularly the 6-71 and 8V-71, were used in a lot of cruisers from the 1940s on through the 1970s and maybe even into the 80s. First number is the number of cylinders, second number is the displacement of each cylinder. They are relative simple engines which translates into very high reliability. More so even than recreational boats Detroits have been used in landing craft, Navy launches, tugs, commercial fishing boats--- the list goes on. With at least a reasonable level of service and maintenance Detroits are kind of like the Energizer Bunny.

The downside of a Detroit is the noise and the fuel consumption, both of which are tied to the two-cycle nature of the engine. There are ways to reduce the noise. The fuel consumption is what it is.

I can only think of one marine diesel that is considered by pretty much everyone who comes in contact with it to be a piece of crap and that is a marinized version of a GM V-8. I don't remember the displacement but the land version was bad, too. It was an existing gas engine design that was adapted for diesel use in cars in (I think) the 1980s when diesel enjoyed a brief surge of interest in the US due to rising gas prices. GM put the engine in Cadillacs and some other models where it quickly earned a reputation of being rubbish in terms of reliability. The marinized version is no better. So stay away from that one.

With the rest of the makes, the way the engine has been operated and cared for by previous owners is WAY more important than the name on the builder's plate or even the number of hours on the Hobbs meter. In my opinion, I would rather buy a boat with engines with 6,000 hours on them and a history of being properly run and maintained than a boat with 2000 hours on the engines but a history of hard or abusive running and poor service and maintenance.

With the possible exception of the BMW and GM diesels, I suspect all the other makes I've mentioned are owned by at least some members of this forum. So they can chime in with specific opinions or experiences with them. The only engine of the bunch I have had direct experience with is the Ford Lehman 120 but I've always been interested in engines so have tried to learn at least something about many of them.


Thank you for a good instructional review. When he mentioned that it would probably be around 25K to Remove and replace my 30 hp sailboat auxiliarry these days, he got my attention! I was always thinking in the 10-12K area. I didn't know about the new clean burning regulations and effects on our marine engines, but apparently complying replacements have increased in cost tremendously. He was high on Cummings, Said the Fords did have good transmissions for reliability.

Are there any engines out there that were not marinezed industrial commercial bases? Engines, designed for the marine environment only?
 
Engine and transmission sold separately.:) So a Ford can have any of several transmissions bolted to it. A typical transmission for a Ford in an older boat is the Borg Warner Velvet Drive. It's not the greatest transmission in the world but it's okay. It's what we have in our boat.

So far as I know--- which isn't very far---- the engines used in boats like ours are all marinized versions of automotive, industrial, or agricultural engines. An exception might be Volvo. When you get up into the more powerful engines used in larger yachts and sportfishermen you might find engines made specifically for marine use. MAN and the like. Someone like Rick B of this forum could provide an accurate answer for you.

I personally think your mechanic's estimate of $25k to repower your 30hp sailboat is way over the mark. We have friends who repowered their sailboat with a Yanmar and it was a whole lot less than that. So get a second or third opinion before acting on that advice.
 
25K for a 30 hp repower? Someone is on drugs.
 
A friend of ours just re-powered his Sabre 425 Sailboat with a new Yanmar. He's in Panama where labor is cheaper. Here are the numbers:

Engine Install Costs

Cost of being in marina
$498---------Marina charges
$10,004.50---Engine, Controller cables and tax
$200---------Shipping to get engine to Bocas del Toro
$380---------New C/V joint to connect shaft, $275 plus $105 shipping
$97----------Oil & coolant for transmission & heat exchanger plus 2 changes
$150---------Welding new engine mount beds
$400---------Labor mechanic 10 hours to consult and help move engines
$68----------Miscellaneous parts

New exhaust
$641---------28 feet of 3 inch exhaust hose plus hose clamps
$423---------New Muffler $278, plus shipping from Seattle $145
$150---------Welding custom exhaust riser and 3" threw hull part
$25----------Miscellaneous parts

$13,036.50---Total
 
Well I am glad I don't need a new engine. I thought he was very high also but Marblehead is the high rent district around here. He gave my engine a good clean bill of health for a 1974 Westerbeke 30. :thumb:
 
You wouldn't be required to put in one of the new whiz-bang electronic diesels anyway. You can go back with the same level your sailboat was built with. For that one of the old tiny Volvos would be hard to beat for durability. My trawler still has the 1 lung MD5a CrossPower genset. She is loud, shakey, and runs perfectly (even has handle and compression release to crank by hand). It is so thrifty that I can't measure its overnite usage in my tanks!
 
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