List: trawlers@lists.trawlering.com
From: scaramouche@tvo.org
Re: Where's Arild ( was TWL: Battery Minder)
Sat, Jan 12, 2002 5:50 PM
elnav@uniserve.com writes:
>So much for the
>invinciblity of diesel engines in a wet hostile environment.
>These new
>engines sound as if they will be almost as suceptible to
>electrical
>problems as a gasoline engine.
On a water not so far away and not so long ago I owned a 34ft
motor-sailer with a Norwegian SABB Diesel for a power-source. It had
no generator/alternator, no starter, no belt/pulley, and not a single
piece of electrical wire, none nix, nada.
(An electrical starter and a generator could be ordered as optional
equipment for lazy sailors.)
It had a mechanical tachometer and to start it one used a handcrank
through a clever set of gears and chains. To preheat it on very cold
days, one opened a plug and inserted a cigarette butt into the first
cylinder.
Lloyds of London approved it as a lifeboat engine because of its
ruggedness and its ability to run under water, provided one could get
air into it. Now that was a marine engine; and in spite of my opening
line, this is not a fairy tale!!!
Cheers - George