Inboard engine vs. outboard motor on CP23--my situation

[SSouris]

Hi, all.  I'm new to this website and am considering buying a new Com-Pac 23 with inboard engine.  I have an old CP23 now with an outboard and sail on a lake near Dallas.   I'd like to explain my interest in an inboard and get some feedback.  (I've already perused the website looking at threads on this issue.)

I have very  little mechanical capability, although I can follow directions and do what a layperson is supposed to be able to do regarding basic maintenance.  For example, for my current outboard I use the two additives my mechanic tells me to add to the fuel, I run the motor regularly so the fuel doesn't gum up, etc. I've even read the manual!

I understand the advantages of an outboard on a CP23:  1) It's relatively easy for someone like me to just remove it (well, my Mercury 9.9 is a bit over 100 lbs.!)  and take it to a shop instead of waiting for a qualified mechanic to come to the boat to fix or do maintenance on an inboard.   2) Any fumes are kept outside of the cabin instead of accumulating inside the cabin.  3) It's a whole  lot cheaper to buy and maintain an outboard!  4) An inboard involves two thru-hull piercings that need to be properly sealed at all times.  5) An inboard takes up space that could otherwise be used for storage. 6) An inboard can be noisy for those in the cabin.

But here is why I'm considering an inboard engine:  I'm currently 58.  I want to be able to do extensive sailing in the Gulf (launching, say, from Pensacola) or on Lake Michigan (launching, say, from Michigan City).  I also want to sail on my Dallas area lake.   I like heavy weather (20-25 knots) and want to be able to single-hand in heavy weather.  Neither my wife nor I can use a pull cord on an outboard (she's weak and I have an injury), so we have to rely on an electric starter.  Handling a heavy outboard in heavy weather when single-handing is no easy task (raising, lowering, etc.).  I think an inboard engine would be more reliable and easier to use—thus safer for heavy weather sailing and extensive cruising.  It would also allow for covering greater distances when cruising.   Another advantage: better weight distribution. 

What would I be getting myself into as a mere layperson who would have to rely on a qualified mechanic to service my engine?  Does anyone on this website have an inboard engine on a CP23 who has come to regret it?  I'll appreciate any advice you folks may want to offer regarding having an inboard engine on a CP23 instead of an outboard.

[Tom L.]

Since you are buying a new boat you will have years of trouble free engine service if you simply do basic maintenance. A diesel on a 23 is overkill but your reasons are solid. I would get what works best for you. Keep in mind you will most likely take a larger loss when it comes time to sell. But that may not be an issue for you.

There are other ways to handle on Outboard. The electric start as you know and there is a motor mount that has a pneumatic cylinder that will lift the motor. You would have to push it down along with the motor weight but the lifting back up is done mostly by the mount.

Tom L.

[Shawn]

"Handling a heavy outboard in heavy weather when single-handing is no easy task (raising, lowering, etc.)."

Another couple of options for this...

http://www.garelick.com/Manual-Operated-Easy-Pump-Hydraulic-Lift-Outboard-Motor-Bracket

http://www.bobsmachine.com/Kicker-Jac-100-300000.htm

Shawn

[TedStrat]

Souris.....I am/was an outboard guy. I saved up and bought my first on at 16 yrs old for $50 bucks and have had them ever since (I'm now 57). I can do most of the maintenance including changing impellers etc - not a big deal. You can imagine my concern about buying an eclipse with a diesel, but I did. I researched and listed the pros and cons and in the end I went diesel. I worried about how to maintain , start, work on, etc this new format. Having the Eclipse a year and going through winterization and then recommissioning I can tell you in many ways it's easier than an outboard. I wanted to learn so if I was sailing and no mechanics nearby when there was a problem, I would know what to do.

All the reasons which made me lean towards the diesel are true. The "push of a button" to start, the lack of cavitation in waves, the difficulty reaching back to start, reverse, the ethanol problem with outboards now, the sleek look without it, etc - all worth it. The balance of this Eclipse is fantastic - if it sunk tomorrow (God forbid) I would take the insurance and do it again.

Now, there will be many guys who will reply and make a good case for outboards too and they won't be wrong. For me, I am a convert and will never "fear" the diesel again. If you decide to go that way, don't worry about maintenance - you will learn the basics and figure out the rest. At seasons end have a mechanic service just as you would the outboard. The inboard diesel is a beautiful thing.
Good luck
-TED

[Craig]

We went for the inboard diesel in our Horizon Cat and love it! Our reasons are similar to yours and Ted's. I think maintenance issues are are overblown. Diesels don't require all that much! Keep the fuel clean and change oil and they just keep on chuggin'. Most areas (Dallas for sure) have mobile mechanics who specialize in on-boat maintenance. I have had OBs on most of my boats but am happy with the diesel and would not go back. Having the weight down low and more amidships is a definite plus stability and balance-wise. In addition nobody is going to steal your diesel overnight in the hotel parking lot or marina!

[Jon898]

One factor not mentioned about an inboard is the heat they give off after they've been used...something to consider in a small cabin in the heat of a southern summer.

I've had diesels on my previous boats (40' steel ketch, Newport 28 and Precision 28) and found them to be trouble free if treated right (make sure you run them under load and be persnickety about fuel quality).  If I ever went back to a bigger boat, I'd definitely go the inboard route if I could afford it.

[HeaveToo]

I understand exactly what you are saying about the inboard.  I really wish that I had one on my Compac because it extends your range quite a bit.  You have a 10 gallon tank and burn about .5 gallons an hour, thus giving you around 20 hours of motoring.

One thing with an inboard is that the boat may hobby horse in bad weather.  My Catalina 30 use to do that and it would barely make headway.  The thing I did to help was to motor sail into heavy weather.

Yes, you get heat in the cabin, you do have a through hull and a packing gland to deal with, and you loose some storage space, but you gain a lot of other nice features.  If you can swing it, I would suggest a max prop or something similar.  The propeller can be quite a drag when sailing in light winds.

[brackish]

I'm 68  with a back that is not real reliable and I hear you loud and clear.  If I were buying new or even looking used, I would prefer a diesel inboard or even better an electric inboard with batteries used for part of the ballast.  The latter is extraordinarily expensive.  

Your reasons are sound.  I solved some of the problems of lifting, mounting, removing, manually starting and fore to aft trim by switching from a 9.9 hp, 4 stroke with electric start to a sail pro 6hp 4stroke with manual,  The manual on the sail pro is very very easy to pull and it can be lifted on a spring assist lift mount with a minimal amount of effort.  I can also mount and remove the motor by myself with no stress to the body parts.  There is a dramatic difference from the old heavier motor.

Diesels are very reliable and if user maintained properly they should give years of service between the times a mechanic is needed.  Making sure you have a good water separator such as a Racor is most important.

At my age, with the Sail Pro, I don't find the motor to be the issue.  The lack of standing headroom in the cabin and under the bimini is much further up the list of irritants.

[HeaveToo]

Brackish, I really hear you about the standing headroom.  It does a job on your back if you are on the boat for a while.  I eventually adjust to it, but I am younger.

If I was going to spend money I would go up in size a little bit.  Maybe a Cape Dory 28 or Pearson 303.

[Shawn]

I guess I may be somewhat of the dissenting view, esp. on a boat like the Compac 23. I'm still in the hate/love/hate aspect of owning a diesel inboard....

To maximize ease of use the electric motor mount I linked to along with an outboard with electric start, remote controls and steering linked to the rudder would be as easy to use as the inboard, offer far better maneuverability, cost much less, be much easier to service, weight at least 100-150 pounds less, lower yearly service costs, avoid two holes in the boat (either of which could sink the boat if something goes wrong), offer more interior storage, sail better (less drag), quieter/cooler in the cabin, quieter in the cockpit, less exhaust fumes going down wind and would be *dramatically* cheaper to repower when that day comes.

Since moving to a bigger boat (Sabre 28) with an inboard I have wished for a Tohatsu hanging on the transom many times. My diesel inboard is old (35 years) and parts are expensive if available at all. I am *finally* at the point of starting to trust it a bit but it has taken an enormous amount of work and time on my part. As a rough estimate I've probably worked on the engine about 100 hours in the last year and still have (hopefully) a little more to go.

During the survey the engine ran great, started easily and had no problems. Day I brought the Sabre and brought her home the engine died in home port after motoring beautifully for about 7 hours. The high pressure fuel injection pump died. Marine diesel mechanic didn't even want to work on the engine. Due to horrible access and a cascading number of other things it took me 5 weeks to swap out the pump and get the engine running again. During that time I also had the raw water pump rebuilt as it had a bad seal and was leaking which contributed to the difficulties I had in swapping in the injector pump due to having to drill a rusted bolt that I had no access to. I lucked out in being able to find a used high pressure pump for $100. Otherwise I was looking at a $1000 rebuild. Again lucked out in finding the water pump rebuild kit at a consignment shop for $20, otherwise it would have been around $175 in parts. Spent around $45 in fuel filters as well and maybe another $50 replacing cooling hoses as they were a little old and had me concerned.

After getting it running again I was having sporadic issues with #2 cylinder not starting. At the time I thought it was due to air getting into the fuel system which prevents an injector from firing. Spent a lot of time trying to track down an air leak at the injector and swapping fuel lines and such. This went on all season and caused a lot of mistrust.

I also began having overheating issues that progressed over the season to the point where by the end of the season I was running at 1200 RPM and only for short periods of time. This greatly limited the time I could use and what I could use it for.

All in all I lost a huge amount of time on the water that season.

To aid in keeping the engine going I bought a parts engine w/ transmission... $800. Over the winter I tore apart the diesel (again in that cramped space) to look to solve my cooling problems. The internals of the engine were all gunked up and it took quite a bit of work to get them cleaned out and flowing water well again. Probably another $100 in gaskets for this as well as 20 hours or so cleaning everything out and cleaning/painting to parts I was going to reinstall. While I was in there I also did additional preventative maintenance in replacing the exhaust riser which luckily was made from black pipe so it only costed around $150 instead of the $400ish for a factory part. Also needed to replace some of the exhaust hose (at $8 a foot) and will likely need to replace the rest of the run in a year or two.

To try and add to the life of the engine I converted to fresh water cooling. $170 for a used heat exchanger that I completely cleaned out and up, buffed and painted. Had to change my raw water pump to a newer style so that I could use an add on piggy back pump... another $450 or so there. Lots of new hoses... $150ish. Cooling system gaskets $25ish. Re-engineering some of the hard pipe connections between the transmission cooling loop and the water pump... $45ish. Loads of time mounting the heat exchanged and running hoses to test everything.

On the hard the engine seemed to be running fine. Throttle up and kept its cool.

Spent a couple of hours repacking the packing gland which has horrible access to it. Maybe $25 in parts. Next year I need to replace the hose on that system which is a much larger job. Also had to service the seacocks which took a couple of hours.

Had the boat launched and now with load on the engine it was immediately apparent I was again running on a single cylinder. Difference was this time no matter what I did I couldn't get #2 to fire. To say I was a little POed would be an understatement.

After a fair amount of sailers language and lots of time pondering the situation I decided to try pulling/inspecting the injector. As they are mechanical injectors I opened it up and found that the needle valve/pintle was stuck solid in the nozzle. If I had to buy a new injector that is around $600. I previously had cleaned the injectors from my parts engine (if I brought them somewhere it would have been $150ish each) and installed one of them instead. This got the engine running properly on both cylinders and I then brought the engine on a 3 hours cruise back to home port from its winter home. Checking engine temp with an IR thermometer pretty much every 5 minutes... engine stayed cool.

Since then I have had a few more issues in the engine suddenly again not firing on #2 or being incredibly white smoky on start up. Problem is again the injector. It is now sticking open slightly and dumping excess fuel or sticking closed preventing the cylinder from firing. I've removed them and cleaned them a few more times.

The new ULSF diesel seems like it is part of my problems. The injector pump may have failed due to the lower lubricosity of the diesel. The sticking injectors are likely as result of "diesel soap" that is a chemical reaction with the ULSF. My next course of action is pumping out all the fuel in my tank, cleaning the tank and starting again with fresh fuel. If I had someone out to do this for me I got a quote of $550 for fuel polishing.

I'm also adding another Racor 500FG fuel filter ($175) but that is more for piece of mind. I'm not sure it would help the soap issue but it will keep water and most contaminants out of the system. I am hopeful that this will resolve my sticky injector issues.

If I had to pay someone to do all the above I would have been looking at an *enormous* bill. Marine diesel mechanics charge somewhere around $75-$100 per hour and that will include travel time.

Early on I got estimates on repowering... that was $8k engine/transmission alone and would have easily been thousands more in hidden costs and additional yard costs.

When I bought my Compac 23 it came with an old Johnson outboard on it. The Johnson was causing a lot of troubles. I could have rebuilt most of what it needed to get it running correctly for about $200 in parts. I decided to repower with a Tohatsu Sailpro for about $1400. Repowering took about an hour and the Tohatsu was flawless except for one time when I screwed up and overfilled an oil change. On that screwup I just took the engine home and fixed it in my garage easily and quickly with wonderful access. In the 4 or 5 years I owned it I maybe spent $100 maintaining it per the manual and only maybe 2 hours per season. I will easily spend that every season (fuel filters, zincs, oil filter, oil, winterizing coolant....etc..etc)

Now that I am *finally* starting to get my inboard back in shape I understand the ease of use attraction... when things work properly. That can be pretty well duplicated with an outboard as outlined above with the added bonus of much better steering in reverse. Prop walk in reverse is a bit of a PITA that isn't an issue steering an outboard in reverse.

When diesel engines don't work properly an outboard is orders of magnitude easier and cheaper to fix or replace outright. And that is on my diesel which is very simplistic, no glow plugs or any sort of electronics (solenoids) involved in start/stop the engine.

Shawn

[moonlight]

That's it in a nutshell!
I recently started a thread about moving my CP 25 down to the Keys, but before doing so, I'd be pulling the Westerbeke and putting in an electric inboard.
I'm working my way down the list and will address the concerns shared by others there, but the posting above summarizes exactly why I'd be pulling a lightly used low hours diesel and going all electric. 
Electric works like your lights.  Switch on, Switch off.  Oh, and 100% of the torque @ 1 RPM.  Diesels in sailboats are all overpowered, because they need the torque to start the prop.  So the equation (diesel) is imbalanced from the start; too much HP to get the torque you need at 600RPM, and the engine suffers constant abuse because it's never properly loaded ... problems don't start right away, but they do.
And if you (me) are only going to use it 3-4 times a year; that makes for one mad-as-a-wet-hen diesel.  Top end drys out, compression goes down, wear goes up, won't start until lubrication flowing, a mess.
Diesels, properly matched to their load, properly run, properly maintained, RUN FOREVER.  Look at locomotives...and just remember that locomotive is running a diesel GENERATOR at almost one constant RPM and a fairly consistent load, and there are other GENERATORS that come online sequentially when the load increases.  The generators drive ELECTRIC TRACTION MOTORS that turn the wheels ... off the the CP 25 forum now! 

[jcatkeson]

I would be very happy we're my 23 to have a diesel. I had such in another boat for twenty years with zero problems. Not the least advantage is that the diesel fuel Economy is far beyond that of an outboard. After six years with an OB I can say there is no love in the hate relationship.

[brackish]

Well a little thread drift here, but since larger (than the 23) boats have been discussed, if it were possible to repower a larger sailboat with a brand new Universal A4 that had electronic ignition and fuel injection, that is exactly what I would do.  I had one for 16 years.  Quiet, smooth, easy to maintain, only problem I ever had was with the carburetor and even that cost about $40 for a replacement, somewhat less for a rebuild (1990$s) and fuel injection would solve that problem.  Since it was used for non marine purposes, parts were available from much less expensive non-marine sources.

Gone, but certainly not forgotten, a victim of liability risk as a result of those not willing to take the time to properly vent before starting and injured as a result.  Moyer keeps them alive but not sure I would want one that had been recovered.  But new, absolutely.

[SSouris]

All:  I greatly appreciate all the advice you folks have given me!  ~ SSouris

[cdflan]

Can't help but jump in here and amplify on the electric post above.  Have had power and sail with outboards, gas and diesel inboard engines for 60+ years and the electric power installed in my HC is by far the best, most elegant answer.  Four KW Torqeedo with four 205AH batteries gives 30+NM range at 4.5 KT; more range at slower speed and faster travel with shorter range.  Three of the batteries are on a tray where the diesel would sit and the forth is buried in the keel forward of the centerboard (space utilization and better ballast). No key to turn, button to press, no heat, no exhaust and almost no noise - just hit the throttle lever and off you go.  The only other feature I'd love to have is a feathering prop since I loose between .3 and .5 KT when sailing from the free wheeling fixed pitch prop.  Use of the Torqeedo Cruise 4.0 on an outboard bracket with remote control would accomplish the same thing but aesthetically, that didn't work for me.