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Spare outboard - too many choices


Jerry Rhum

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At the end of last summer I bought a 19ft GRP to use as a day / weekend boat up and down the GUC. She's a Mirror Offshore like this. I got it cheap because the inboard engine is completely knackered.

 

She is powered with a 85lb electric motor run off a 12v leisure battery. I have a second battery for the motor and a third for the LED lights.

 

So far I have taken her on short jaunts of a couple of hours and around 8 miles tops. I have realised by not running the motor flat out I can travel at about 4 mph and not flatten the batteries, but I still haven't got a feel for how I will fare on longer journeys.

 

Once the weather warms I'd like to go a bit further afield, on weekend trips, and sleep over night.

 

My worry is that I'll run out of battery and be stuck in the middle of nowhere with my two kids on board. Initially I'll go north until the first battery gets low, then set off back the next day using the first battery, change over to the second battery when needed and still have the 'lights' battery as back up.

 

However.......

 

What if I'm sailing in to the wind, or have some other unexpected strains on power?

 

So I am thinking of buying a petrol outboard as a back up, but which one?

 

It will need to sit unused for long periods of time, but start first time when needed. It needs to be longshaft. It needs to be at least 2hp (as this is the equivalent of 85lb thrust).

 

I can get a brand new 3.5hp 2 stroke for £220 from Amazon (there is also a secondhand one for £80, near here). 

or

a 4 stroke for £260 

these are air cooled. Does that mean they are noisy? does the 2 / 4 stroke make a difference to that?

 

or I can get a second hand Seagull for £120, are these more reliable? they seem to be designed as trolling engines so is that better for long journeys at canal speeds?

 

or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether?

 

Any advice would be most welcome

 

cheers

Jerry

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Good little boats mirror off shores. I'm sure the guy who did 'keep turning left' had one. 

 

I think 2hp will be a bit on the small size. I would go for a modern four-stroke of the Honda or Mariner variety. 

 

Two stroke seagulls do have a following, and when working, work well and are very simple. But you can't beat a modern outboard imho. 

Edited by rusty69
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Honda 5 is an ok outboard. 4 stroke. 

 

I've got a Yamaha Malta 3hp 2 stroke as well as a Mariner 4hp 2 stroke. Nice units but a bit annoying being two stroke. These came with boats I bought. Also have various electric outboards of course. About 6 of them. 

 

Possibly too many outboards ?

 

There are people who say, possibly correctly, that the Yamaha Malta was one of if not the best small outboard ever made. I also have one of the old partly water cooled Honda 2 outboards (1995) which is really good but a bit small for a 13 footer. 

 

You could do worse than a Yamaha Malta. 3hp is an interesting size for an outboard. 

 

On balance I would look for a Honda 5 but do research about their problems. There is something going on with the exhaust manifold on these. Searches on Google including the word forum yield interesting results. 

 

I would steer clear of the motors which look like a strimmer as I am convinced they are for landfill. 

 

 

Some people advocate the older 2 cylinder evinrude and Johnson outboards. There is a member on here called @Murflynn who had a little evinrude 4hp twin as a backup for his boat on the Thames. I've not run one of these but being a twin they are interesting as slightly quieter and probably a bit more torque.

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I'm not a fan of the Tohatsu 4 strokes (Mercury, Mariner and Tohatsu brands all the same thing). 

 

Yamaha did a nice little 4hp if you can find one.

 

Most manufacturers standardise the 4, 5 and 6hp into a single product which just has different specifications. This means a 4hp is about the same weight as a 5 or a 6. 

 

Yamaha did a 4 stroke 4 which happened before this standardisation. I think this would be a really nice little outboard to get hold of. 

 

Very quiet apparently. 

 

Yamaha F4 but not the current model. 

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7 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Honda 5 is an ok outboard. 4 stroke. 

 

I've got a Yamaha Malta 3hp 2 stroke as well as a Mariner 4hp 2 stroke. Nice units but a bit annoying being two stroke. These came with boats I bought. Also have various electric outboards of course. About 6 of them. 

 

Possibly too many outboards ?

 

There are people who say, possibly correctly, that the Yamaha Malta was one of if not the best small outboard ever made. I also have one of the old partly water cooled Honda 2 outboards (1995) which is really good but a bit small for a 13 footer. 

 

You could do worse than a Yamaha Malta. 3hp is an interesting size for an outboard. 

 

On balance I would look for a Honda 5 but do research about their problems. There is something going on with the exhaust manifold on these. Searches on Google including the word forum yield interesting results. 

 

I would steer clear of the motors which look like a strimmer as I am convinced they are for landfill. 

 

 

Some people advocate the older 2 cylinder evinrude and Johnson outboards. There is a member on here called @Murflynn who had a little evinrude 4hp twin as a backup for his boat on the Thames. I've not run one of these but being a twin they are interesting as slightly quieter and probably a bit more torque.

The evinrude /Johnson seahorse, I think it is gets some good press iirc, though they are quite old these days. 

 

Pretty lightweight being 2 stroke 

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Current model Yamaha F4

 

IMG_20230129_200458.jpg.b93fcd763839d06b27d1395e00630fb2.jpg

 

Earlier model which is lighter 

 

 

IMG_20230129_200307.jpg.fcafda07f20af4062e86b8fab8e97d87.jpg

 

Carry handle is the obvious difference. I have not tried one of these but have read that the lower of these two is a really nice little outboard. 

 

 

As I recall the lighter one was 18kg and the other one was 25kg. Something like that anyway. 

Edited by magnetman
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3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Most manufacturers standardise the 4, 5 and 6hp into a single product which just has different specifications. This means a 4hp is about the same weight as a 5 or a 6.

 

Don't know much about modern OB, but the above makes me ponder on what we found with Mercs in the early 70s.

 

We used 8hp on the day boats, but they discontinued the 8hp so we had to buy 9hp ones. Some time later while doing some fault-finding I found the difference was a restrictor between carb and engine. Remove the restrictor and the 8 hp suddenly became 9 hp, not that we tested them.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Jerry Rhum said:

At the end of last summer I bought a 19ft GRP to use as a day / weekend boat up and down the GUC. She's a Mirror Offshore like this. I got it cheap because the inboard engine is completely knackered.

 

She is powered with a 85lb electric motor run off a 12v leisure battery. I have a second battery for the motor and a third for the LED lights.

 

So far I have taken her on short jaunts of a couple of hours and around 8 miles tops. I have realised by not running the motor flat out I can travel at about 4 mph and not flatten the batteries, but I still haven't got a feel for how I will fare on longer journeys.

 

Once the weather warms I'd like to go a bit further afield, on weekend trips, and sleep over night.

 

My worry is that I'll run out of battery and be stuck in the middle of nowhere with my two kids on board. Initially I'll go north until the first battery gets low, then set off back the next day using the first battery, change over to the second battery when needed and still have the 'lights' battery as back up.

 

However.......

 

What if I'm sailing in to the wind, or have some other unexpected strains on power?

 

So I am thinking of buying a petrol outboard as a back up, but which one?

 

It will need to sit unused for long periods of time, but start first time when needed. It needs to be longshaft. It needs to be at least 2hp (as this is the equivalent of 85lb thrust).

 

I can get a brand new 3.5hp 2 stroke for £220 from Amazon (there is also a secondhand one for £80, near here). 

or

a 4 stroke for £260 

these are air cooled. Does that mean they are noisy? does the 2 / 4 stroke make a difference to that?

 

or I can get a second hand Seagull for £120, are these more reliable? they seem to be designed as trolling engines so is that better for long journeys at canal speeds?

 

or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether?

 

Any advice would be most welcome

 

cheers

Jerry


That amazon outboard you linked looks like junk. It’s cheap, and as a backup you need it to work after not being touched for months on end. So you need something reliable like a Yamaha or Honda which will obviously cost a lot more.

Approaching the problem from a different angle……as you will be using the boat during warmer weather, have you considered adding solar? A couple of hundred watts of panel will mean you’ll never have to pay to charge the batteries during the summer. Also, on a sunny day the panels will offset the battery drain to a degree. If you do ever flatten your backup battery simply leave the boat and the solar will fully charge it up in a day or so.   

Edited by booke23
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29 minutes ago, booke23 said:


That amazon outboard you linked looks like junk. It’s cheap, but as a backup you need it to work after probably not being touched for months on end so you need a Yamaha or Honda which will obviously cost a lot more.

Approaching the problem from a different angle……as you will be using the boat during warmer weather, have you considered adding solar? A couple of hundred watts of panel will mean you’ll never have to pay to charge the batteries during the summer. Also, on a sunny day the panels will offset the battery drain to a degree. If you do ever flatten your backup battery simply leave the boat and the solar will fully charge it up in a day or so.   

Solar is an interesting option.

 

Another possibility as the inboard engine is "completely nackered" would be to investigate scrapping it and replacing with an electric motor.

 

Boat was designed for inboard motor propulsion so it seems sensible to find out how completely nackered it is and if it is scrap then maybe get it out.

 

 

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1 minute ago, magnetman said:

Solar is an interesting option.

 

Another possibility as the inboard engine is "completely nackered" would be to investigate scrapping it and replacing with an electric motor.

 

Boat was designed for inboard motor propulsion so it seems sensible to find out how completely nackered it is and if it is scrap then maybe get it out.

 

 

 

What makes you think it is knackered or is it in bits? Any chance of a photo?

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2 hours ago, Jerry Rhum said:

At the end of last summer I bought a 19ft GRP to use as a day / weekend boat up and down the GUC. She's a Mirror Offshore like this. I got it cheap because the inboard engine is completely knackered.

 

.....

 

cheers

Jerry

 

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8 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

What makes you think it is knackered or is it in bits? Any chance of a photo?

If it's a 10hp Lister like the one in the advert then it is probably repairable, and if not they regularly come up on ebay for not a lot of money. A diesel engine will be significantly cheaper to run than a petrol outboard. 

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Or being a sailing boat, maybe stick the mast in a tabernacle and use that for propulsion. 

 

Fwiw, the guy in KTL had a volvo engine in his one. There is an episode that shows the engine mounts being replaced. 

Edited by rusty69
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One thing to remember is that a lot of the older really small engines were direct drive with no neutral or reverse. You have to spin the engine to go in reverse. Fine on a little dinghy around harbour moorings but a real pain in a bigger boat on a congested canal. I've got a couple of Ailsa Craig (4hp) and Seagulls (about 1.5hp) like that. Something like one of the last 2 stroke Mariner/Mercury 3.3hp has neutral but no reverse. Get to 5hp and above and most seemed to have fwd, neutral and reverse. I've got an old 5hp Yamaha air cooled two stroke on a sailboat similar in size to the Mirror offshore and it works okay on the river against a moderate tidal flow.

 

The suggestion to top up using solar isn't really going to cut it as the roof space is so limited. It would be a squeeze to get 50w of solar on there let alone a few hundred watts.

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40 minutes ago, BilgePump said:

One thing to remember is that a lot of the older really small engines were direct drive with no neutral or reverse. You have to spin the engine to go in reverse. Fine on a little dinghy around harbour moorings but a real pain in a bigger boat on a congested canal. I've got a couple of Ailsa Craig (4hp) and Seagulls (about 1.5hp) like that. Something like one of the last 2 stroke Mariner/Mercury 3.3hp has neutral but no reverse. Get to 5hp and above and most seemed to have fwd, neutral and reverse. I've got an old 5hp Yamaha air cooled two stroke on a sailboat similar in size to the Mirror offshore and it works okay on the river against a moderate tidal flow.

 

The suggestion to top up using solar isn't really going to cut it as the roof space is so limited. It would be a squeeze to get 50w of solar on there let alone a few hundred watts.

 

Where there is a will there is a way!

 

Small boat on solar energy editorial photography. Image of cell - 44370512

 

It would be a squeeze without elevating the panels like the above example. But I think you could just get 2 x 75W panels on each side of the roof plus a 50W transom mounted panel. Hard to know exactly without seeing it though.

 

There is a guy with a grp day boat moored near me and he has what looks like a 200w panel mounted on the transom (don't think you could get a panel this size on the OP's transom) and an electric outboard. He goes for trips up and down the canal on summer evenings. His mooring has no electricity so the panel provides the power to charge his batteries.     

Edited by booke23
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35 minutes ago, BilgePump said:

 

 

The suggestion to top up using solar isn't really going to cut it as the roof space is so limited. It would be a squeeze to get 50w of solar on there let alone a few hundred watts.

 

One approach would be to elevate the solar panel on stands like a gazebo and use it as shade/rain cover for the cockpit. This would depend on beam at the stern end but you could probably put a 365w panel or something up there if done right. Watch the bridges if used on the cut though. 

 

Cross posted with booke23. Great minds like a think. 

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Thank you everyone for your replies.

 

I was considering solar as an option. I've got a couple of small panels and control units from a previous project, but there's not enough sunlight at the moment to test everything fully. Another battery would be cheaper than an outboard, but as BilgePump says, there is not a lot of surface area, plus I just can't shake the idea of having a more traditional back up. I'll keep investigating this avenue though.

 

 Attached are pictures of the diesel engine, a Penta MD1. Knackered, in this context, means well beyond my skill to repair and un-economical to pay someone else to do it. I have no idea how much it would cost to get a boat yard to haul the engine out, get it up and running, and put it back in again, but I suspect it would be more than I paid for the boat. Same with having it removed and replaced. I wonder how much I would get for it as scrap?

 

From a manoeuvrability POV, the electric motor has reverse, so as long as I didn't completely flatten the battery I could use the petrol engine for the long straights, then the electric for docking. 

 

Going through my photo's I have discovered that the outboard bracket is a Seagull. Maybe a clue as to what engine was used in the past.

 

Puffin3.jpg

volvo1.jpg

bracket.jpg

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7 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Certainly looks unloved and rusty, but do you know its actually knackered for sure?

It might be worth at least trying to turn it over with the crank handle if you have one (using the decompression lever as required)

Yes, there is a decompressor - black knob in the second photo. Flip it to the other side.

 

If it turns over fairly easily, then flip the decompressor back and see if it gets considerably more difficult to turn over. That tells you there is at least some compression.

 

If you have compression, then it may be worth investigating further.

 

I would not take the engine out unless it needs a major overhaul, most tasks can be done in the boat.

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If I were you I would concentrate on getting the inboard engine working, or at least getting a better idea of what is wrong with it and how much it will cost to put right.

 

If you do end up getting a petrol outboard, the disadvantage of a 2 stroke is that they don't like running at low speed or idle so buy one that is small enough to run at a reasonable speed without making the boat go too fast.

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Looks to me like the boat has been sunk for a while previously. 

 

Volvo MD1 is a nice unit but if it had been underwater for a long time it could well be beyond economical repair. 

 

Worth winding it over to check it's not seized though. 

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8 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Looks to me like the boat has been sunk for a while previously. 

 

Volvo MD1 is a nice unit but if it had been underwater for a long time it could well be beyond economical repair. 

 

Worth winding it over to check it's not seized though. 

It could well have done. The video I watched seemed to show a small hatch directly above the engine though, so its possible that hatch has been leaking onto the top of the engine. Either way, not ideal, particularly if it was in salt water.

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I'm afraid nothing moves (despite liberal applications of WD40)

 

I have got a hand crank handle, but even standing on it does nothing.

 

The decompression lever (or any of the levers) won't budge.

 

I'll give it all another spray and a try, but the reason I got the boat so cheap was because the engine was considered useless.

 

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