Home Forums Fishing Saltwater When are 2 outboards better than one?

Thanks Lott. That makes sense, and I agree with the independent thing.


SS

BW,
Agreed. They only make them so big. The only time I wished I had outboards is when they have the King Salmon tournament in Homer during March. Cause then I wouldnt have to rewinterize inboard, lol.

I think were beating this horse to death. 458 not saying your wrong or I'm wright, just chattering . Ive been running twin yammy's on every boat I've owned since 1987 . I have yet to run into a real badfuel problem. If a situation arose were a guy was selling bad fuel on the water it would not take but a week and that guy would be out of business here in NY. Word gets around pretty dam quick here. I have watched guys that were steady regular customers leave a guy for a month or 2 just because they didn't like the smell of his shark chum to go buy it elsewhere at a major inconvenience to them.The only issue I have seen arise from fuel and outboards in my neck of the woods actually was when they started with the ethenol. when the fuel sloshed around in the tank and a small milky alge would form and it would clog the secondary fuel filter . Not the racor but the tiny one on the motor itself.Since then I have been using the 10 micron Racor's and changing the secondary filter anually.What was happening was the alge would pass throught the racors because the mesh was not fine enough and get caught in the secondary and would cause loss in power( you knew when it was comming)and eventually when it got full total loss. This never happend to me .Simple fix though. Bad fuel issues usually arise from marinas or the like that don't sell a lot of fuel to begin with and it gets funked. If where you buy your fuel is turning over the tanks once every week or 2 Id be surprised if you got bad fuel.

Snowwolfe , there are many companies that build boats with saddle tanks and yes you could rig them individually if you want . One reason why they don't rig saddle tanks individually is if one motor pukes and you have to run home on 1 if you come close to emptying one tank you will have a stability issue depending on how much fuel is left in the off side. On one boat I had , I rigged 3 batteries . One for each motor and one house battery to run the electronics and live wells. Batteries were in the stern . The side that had the extra battery on it listed ( not much ,but very noticeable) and that was just a battery. I added a 4th battery and the list was gone. Now picture what 866 lbs of gas (100 gal) will do to stability. Now if both tanks were in line center of the boat that would be a non issue then.

I can say this , the last 3 sets of yammy's that I have baught (3 different boats)got all regularly scheduled maintinence by the book.I have never had to do any repairs or have never broke downs at sea. I run my boat from March 15th to the end of Nov every year and average about 1200 hours run time per year.Do your maintenance.

"I don't know of any production boats powered with twins that have seperate fuel tanks for each motor. And that Includes the Yards of Rybovich , Merit and the like and they are custom builders. Bertram , Viking , Cabo , Regularor , Intrepid , Seavea all have 1 tank and fuel supply split to feed each motor individually. Others may be out there that do this but I have never heard of or layed eyes on any and I've run a lot of diffent boats from 17' to 125'. "

Wildone, The only reason I stated SeaSport made a boat with dual tanks was because you stated you didnt know of any company that did. Cheers

While changing spark plugs on my Honda 130 yesterday, as the boat was sitting on the trailer, I began to think outboards must be the easiest engines in the world to maintain. I should have been a freakin' outboard mechanic! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I appreciate a good diesel inboard set-up, the slow turning versions. The high revving diesels, like V/P 43's running through a duoprop outdrive are not my idea of a good day bending a wrench. Having said that, I'm sure thats exactly the combo you run! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

What's winterizing? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Wildone,

Yep, we're all just 'chatting' about boats, same as in the other thread in the Alaska section.

I don't know about the others up here, but I'm always fighting water in the fuel. Could be my tanks, I run portable tanks, usually a 26 gallon and a 20 gallon. But occasionally I've borrowed a few more of the big ones when going on a long trip.

Anyhow, maybe the water gets by the filler caps, or the vent on the cap. Could be condensation too. I drain my Racor just about daily. If not, the engine will let me know about it!

The fuel in town here isn't too bad, but it doesn't matter as there's only one fuel company. You'll find no boycotts around here. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I have bought bad fuel in a small town while on a long run. There's wasn't any choice, it was the only fuel around for nearly 100 miles any direction. That tank got me darn near my destination before rough chop and the low fuel level allowed the water and gunk to reach the filters and clog the system. Fortunately the engine didn't die (chevy 350 I/O) completely, and I was able to get into a small cove to fix the problem. Changed filters a couple times, and bought new fuel. Not much else to do at the time. I bought a couple jerry cans for the trip back, and bypassed that town. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Actually I have the 8.1 (496 ci) 375 HP Gas inboard with the duoprop. I love the combo. Great pickup and reasonable economy with my 24 foot SeaSport.

Snowwolf thanks for the heads up on Sea Sport.I was unaware thier tanks were saddled. If you look back at the quote though I stated that I didn't know of any that were rigging them independantly.I wasn't flaming or trying to discredit you. I hope you didn't take it that way. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Naw, I didnt. Cheers and good fishing!

BeDub...I see were your comming from up there . Fuel stops are far and few between. Not a whole lot of traffic probably either to keep things turning over at a good rate.
The EPA is very hard on these guys in my neck of the woods. The guy where I buy my fuel and bait from told me this year it is a never ending battle with upgrades. He told me 6 years ago they made him upgrade his tanks at a cost of over 400k to him and they told him by 2010 he will have to be in compliance with the new regs which will be close to the same #. He says he just barely gets done paying one loan and he has to take out another.He doesn't know how much longer he will be able to stay in business. He only pumps from March to Dec and the begining and end are very slow.There is one guy over here who is notorious for water in his fuel . He is in the middle of the Bay here and barges his fuel over from the mainland. Most of the weekend worriors buy from him because they don't know any better but most of the guys that run the deep blue buy from where I get mine. Take a look here http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQK/is_5_9/ai_n6200100

I have been using Star tron in my tanks to avoid that alge thing I mentioned above but it also helps disperse water in the tank .Read down the article a little bit there is a paragraph that describes how it spreads it out.

Redundant fuel tankage was far more common in older days than today...that does not make it less valid today however.

FWIW, here's a boat that would not plane on one engine.


On the other hand, it would cruise 50-55 below 4000 rpm. Such is life with surface drives and coarse pitched props. As to the question at hand, I'm thinking it a common sense thing, this one or two choice. If you don't mind bobbing around in the deep blue for a spell without a sense of direction, by all means have a single engine boat. I've had singles fail, and I've had one of a pair fail...never had both die on me.

When the one you have quits about ten miles offshore is probably the worst time to decide you shoulda had two.....

I'm really late to this thread, but I thought I'd add my $.02. I have a 26 Regulator running twin 225's. The dry hull weighs 5,000 lbs. That's just too much weight for a running a single 300 everyday. If you're friend decided to go with a single engine (assuming Regulator would even rig one that way), he'd have to use such a low-pitch prop that his top end would really suck. Re-sale value would really suck too. Personally, I can't think of a single reason to rig such a boat with a single engine.

We have a long run here to get to blue water (50 mi +) and it would worry me no end to be that far out with one engine. I would worry so much, that I don't think I'd enjoy the day of fishing. In ten years of running twins offshore, I've come home only once on one engine (bad temp sensor).

As a side note, we have very few Regulators running on the Texas coast. I don't think I've ever run across another one offshore. They are tremendous boats though and handle our high-frequency chop very well. I hope your friend gets the Regulator and really enjoys it. I love mine, it rides like a 35' boat.