- Ahoy you all I'm Capt. Joe, and I just switched over from lurking in the digest for a = while... We're aboard a Wittholz 40, with 2 Panama Canal crossings and 3 = hurricanes under her keel. Currently waiting to freeze into the Holland River Marsh in the Great = White North. (I'll be playing with Other People's Money / Boats this winter...) If I may add my 2 cents worth to the additives discussion. Just as the saying goes "there is no free lunch", there is no mechanic = in a can. I have run single engine yachts and commercial craft way out there off = shore for over 30 years, and I always felt a little more at ease with a = boat when I knew that only the machinery's manufacturer's prescribed = substances were used in her propulsion engines. That is of course with = the exception of a good fungicide in the fuel oils... Salesmen will be salesmen though, and don't forget how and what they get = paid for. I would be rather suspicious of the expertise of a salesperson who's = claming to have a product that'll quiet down a two stroke Detroit. = Anyone with any knowledge of the operating principals of those engines = will know that in order to quiet her down you'd have to stuff her into a = soundshield...any other idea of quieting down the engine is a pursuit of = foolishness. I don't mean to sound nasty, but aside from wasting money on the = snakeoil and repairs to possible damage caused by the product, I am = concerned about the safety of human life and property. After all, you're = not putting that additive in your car and you can't just pull off the = road when things go awry. More people than ever, and many of them inexperienced, venture off shore = these days in the wake of the hype about Trawlers and Real = Passagemakers, and while some of the boats can do the distances and = handle the seaconditions, tragic events can and do take place when = machinery fails. Passagemaker magazine coined the term Holyplace for the enginebay. I = like that. It should convey a message to all of us venturing out there = in very small craft, that what we take down into the Holyplace and allow = our Heavenly Internal Combustion Bodies who live down there to ingest, = just might make the difference of making landfall or being adrift.=20 And think about it. Even if you're only adrift between that short little = distance of 45 miles between Miami and Bimini, you're in the hands of a = very nasty but gently sleeping lady called the Gulf Stream, and she can = awake and become a raging maelstrom in minutes. I also didn't mean to ramble on this long. Capt. Joe www.marinesupportonline.com