My dad was a sailor. My brother's a sailor. I...was on sail boats with them in the Chesapeake Bay. I fought it for a while when my wife's friend and colleague wanted to *give* us a stinkpot. But my wife has been searching the want ads for years looking for a cabin on the water, and now we have one! So far, it's great just to stay in the slip, and that may be the best solution. I am looking into repowering, though. I checked with a couple of companies that sell diesel/electric setups - electric motors powered by diesel generators, but they don't have motors big enough for our boat (27.5'). I'm going to check back - we don't necessarily have to get the equivalent of the Volvo Penta that's in there now. This could be a nice solution since we could use solar panels to supplement the generator - another form of sailing?
I'm also considering a diesel to run on bio and wvo. Check this out - marine water heaters are set up to use engine coolant! Could be a natural for the wvo tank. I'm just starting to look into this, but it seems like it might not be too hard to set up...
The boat has inboard/outboard configuration. The marina mechanic said the outboard would also need to be replaced with either the diesel or diesel/electric idea. Im not so sure...
Any thoughts on dropping a diesel into a boat configured for gas?
Thanks,
Bruce
Hi Bruce. I'm no boat expert, but I'd think you'd be able to swap out the gasoline engine for a diesel one without too much issue... there's no transmission or anything.