Some time back I came across a  query on whether synthetic oil could be safely used in marine diesels. My response:

Most manufacturers permit the use of synthetics, but don't allow longer oil change intervals when employing them.  The question I've always had is whether the gain is worth the cost.  Some of the advantages of synthetics that spring to mind are 1) better performance at temperature extremes, and 2) slightly lower engine internal friction.  In the past, when racing cars, we used synthetic engine oil at times on the premise that synthetics would provide adequate lubrication for very high load applications using lower viscosity oil.  We were after the slight increase in usable horsepower provided by the small decrease in internal engine resistance obtained using a thinner oil.  I believe this is likely measurable, but I don’t know if it’s really significant.  I somewhat suspect that it’s close to an irrelevant gain but, when racing, we would take every trick we could get even if the gains were slight.  I feel less inclined with recreational marine diesels and there is no way I would recommend using a lower viscosity oil than specified by the manufacturer, whether synthetic or not.

On the temperature extreme front, we felt that synthetics would allow us to operate the race engine longer before catastrophic failure when an engine was failing with low oil pressure or overheating.  We might be able to get a lap or two more before it completely stopped operating.  Overheating a diesel is close to the worse thing you can do, so the ability to operate somewhat longer under these conditions is not something I’m willing to pay all that much for.  However, if you live in the arctic, the ability to start easily and get better lubrication faster on extreme low temp start-up could easily be worth the additional investment of synthetic engine oils.

When I was working as an auto mechanic in the early days of synthetics, I saw many instances of moving to a synthetic in an automotive engine causing much more oil leaking.  Nothing catastrophic, but noticeably more leaks were common.  It seemed that those that didn’t leak before changing didn’t leak after.  But, those that did leak, would leak more after the change.

Like all things in engineering, it’s a cost/benefit trade-off.  For me, the additional cost isn’t justified in my usage, but I know it works well for many.  We’re still using dino oil in Dirona.  I changed the oil this weekend, warmed it up, and checked levels as usual.  The oil hardly showed any color (see below) -- just what we like to see.  Whatever oil you chose, change frequently.

                                                --jrh

Hi. I just bought your book and love it.  I'm a little confused about the anchor buoy/trip line system you describe in Chapter 4. We run a Bruce 33 lb. anchor off a 32-foot wooden Grand Banks.

If the anchor is fouled, it sounds  like you approach the buoy while continuing to pick up the anchor rode. I suppose at this point you are almost directly above the anchor and find out it is fouled.  If you cannot raise it do you then pick up the buoy system and just reverse or do you try and attach it to the windlass in order to trip the line/buoy?  Is 1/8” line strong enough to do either?

Thanks for any advice, 

Mark and Joan M.

Our response:

You’re right—if you can’t release the anchor with the anchor rode, you’re not going to release it with an 1/8” line. The purpose of the trip line is not to pull out the anchor by force. Rather, the goal is to unhook the flukes by picking up the anchor from the crown.

We retract the rode until it is up and down (meaning no slack) and attempt to raise the anchor. If the anchor were fouled, we’d then use a boat hook to bring the buoy system on board and pay out rode to provide some slack to the shank end of the anchor. We’d first try to release the anchor via the trip line by hand. The trip line is too small to fit around our windlass, so if that failed, we’d cleat the trip line to a bow cleat and slowly back down.

Jennifer & James

Some time back I got a question from an owner of a larger Bayliner concerned that he wasn’t running his engines hard enough and that, as a consequence, they may not last as long. The advice he’d been given was that diesel engines need to run wide open for at least one hour in 10.  In this case the comment was attributed to a professional service technician, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. I just shake my head when I hear these things.  That's dangerous advice to be giving customers.  It's 100% true that diesels hate running cold.  If the engine isn't up to full operating temperature on each run, it is hard on them.  No debating that point.  But, wide open for 1 hour in 10 is a great way to get short life with the high-output, recreationally-rated diesel engines typically found in planing powerboats such as the Bayliner in question.  Running low horsepower density, continuous duty rated engines at wide open is, of course, fine. But you’ll not find these engines in planing power boats.

Remember the height of the muscle care era of the 60’s and 70’s.  The highest HP Corvette of 1970 put out roughly 1 HP/CID (cubic inch displacement).  The B-series Cummins at 480HP is way beyond that 1 HP/CID mark – these are very high performance engines.  These are not the huge, low stress, continuous-duty diesels that developed the deserved reputation for running “forever”. Modern recreationally rated (non-continuous duty) diesels are high performance engines and need to be treated with considerable care. Specifically, running at WOT for anything other than short duration is asking a lot and, if maintenance and propping is not perfect, short life result.

Our engines haven’t ever run at 100% throttle for more than 30 to 60 seconds at a time.  I do this once every 6 months to check to see that they are operating correctly and can reach rated RPM +50 or more at full throttle in a fully loaded boat.  If you can’t do this, your engines are over-loaded (see: Diesel Engine Overload) or suffering from a mechanical problem that needs attention.  I’ve seen $50k destroyed in a few hundred hours via the combination of overload and running hard.  See the pictures below sent to me from someone who had just read the Diesel Engine Overload article saying “I only wish I knew earlier.”

It’s one the leading destroyers of recreational marine engines.  People buy a new boat and over time more and more “stuff” ends up on board and the bottom paint picks up minor growth.  More often than not, a year later the boat becomes over-propped from these factors and, as a consequence, the engines are overloaded.  Most owners think they can run at “200 RPM off the top”.  They do so without worry, but wonder why they are smoking badly and sooting the transom heavily.  If they are lucky, someone helps them.  If not, another pair of engines won’t likely reach 1,000 hours without major service.

It’s worth mentioning that just about every larger Bayliner (and Meridian) is propped near the limit for a lightly loaded boat.  If you have a Bayliner and haven’t taken 1” of pitch out from the factory configuration, you are probably over-propped.  Some, including ours, needed 2” of pitch removed to get rated RPM+50 at WOT with a fully laden boat. 

Back to the advice of running one hour in ten at wide open throttle.  You’ll hear folks warning you that you need to run 75% load or better, or that you need to run 1 hour in 10 at max.  The former is absolutely fine for a healthy engine, although unnecessary, and the later is a recipe for short engine life.   You absolutely do need to ensure that the engines reaches full operating temp on every run and that is the intent of the 75% rule.  By full operating temp, I don’t just mean that the coolant got to full temperature.   You need the oil hot as well and you won’t get this idling at the dock.  You can only get the oil hot when under load but, trust me, any of the larger Bayliners are under plenty of load well before 75% of WOT. 

We chose to cruise Dirona’s engines at 150HP which is only 55% of rated output (Cummins 270Bs) and we often operate them for weeks at a time never over 30 HP (7.5 kts) when exploring new areas. This means that for weeks at a time, they never go beyond 10% of rated load but, at this load both oil and water are get hot, which is the important factor.  You will hear terrible horror stories about how dangerous light load is to diesels but, as long as the engine is at full operating temperature and sees varying load conditions, this simply isn’t a problem.  Dirona’s engines have well over 3,600 hours on them and we load forward to thousands more.

If you want to play it safe, run conservatively as we do and get the 5,000++ hours you deserve.  There is no guarantee, a part failure can still get you but the odds are much better if you run conservatively.  If you really feel need to run close to the HP limit, get proper instrumentation, especially pyrometers, and keep a very close eye on the engine operating conditions and maintenance.  Under these high load conditions you have a much higher chance of early failure as there is no headroom at this load.  For example, check out this thermostat failure: Cummins 270B Thermostat Failure.  If we were running at very high loads when this happened, this small part failure could have overheated the engines perhaps before we noticed.  At high load, you need to have perfect maintenance, great instrumentation and be very vigilant to any changes in engine health. No matter what you  chose to do, make sure you can reach at least 50 RPM over rated (see the diesel overload article referenced above).  If you are overloaded, backing off a few hundred RPM won’t protect you from catastrophic failure. 

My view is that we need to prop correctly (no overload), get to full operating temp, run conservatively, and enjoy our engines for years.  Running high output recreational rated diesels wide open for 1 hour in 10 is just plain bad advice.

                                                                --jrh

When we leave the marina on a Friday after work, we often don’t reach an anchorage until well past 7pm. Although we could prepare a meal underway, usually we just like to enjoy being out on the water for a bit and winding down from the week. So on Friday night we typically favor lighter, simpler fare that is easy to prepare.

Most Friday night meals are accompanied with Rosemarie Diamante bread from the Essential Baking Company (we buy it at our local QFC.)  We usually also boil a half-pound of frozen Edamame (soy beans in pod) that we buy at Uwajimaya in Bellevue. Recently, we’ve started eating more shrimp, and came up with a simple recipe that fit our Friday night dinner style perfectly.

1.       Use 10-12 shelled, deveined, uncooked shrimp per batch

2.       Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil on medium to high heat

3.       Sprinkle shrimp with spice rub. We used Nantucket Off-Shore Rasta Rub on the first batch and Dragon Rub on the second batch.

4.       Sauté, spice rub side down, for about a minute

5.       Sprinkle the other side with spice rub as the first side books

6.       Sauté the other side for about another minute

7.       Serve with wedges of fresh lemon

We use a variety of spice rubs, some that we make ourselves. One of our favorite recipes is Moroccan Spiced Chicken with Rosemary Oil. We also make blackened seasoning from one of Paul Prudhomme’s cookbooks. The Nantucket rubs are convenient to have on hand and have wonderful flavors. We particularly like boneless, skinless chicken breasts coated with their Rasta Rub and grilled.

I recently had a question on how to eliminate diesel-engine sooting at the transom.  It’s an interesting topic because almost everyone is convinced they have a solution. These solutions run from expensive diesel fuel additives to passing the diesel through permanent magnets on the way to the engines.

Overall, I’m pretty resistant to paying $300 for a simple permanent magnet even if it is packaged in a nice machined aluminum case.  I’m a believer in simple systems and solutions. Generally, my preference is to start with looking at why the engine is smoking in the first place.  One common cause of excess sooting in marine environments is engine overload.  Boat builders specify props that allow the boat to produce the best speed possible when new and lightly loaded, and the engine manufacturer will ensure that configuration doesn’t overload the engine. But, as boats get older, more equipment is brought on board and boats typically get heavier.  Dirona is perhaps an extreme example, but it makes the point clearly. Bayliner advertised the 4087 at 24,000 lbs and when it was last pulled out of the water, it was over 29,000 lbs.  For those whose boat manufacturer props for maximum speed, problems can develop as the boat gets older, the tanks are filled, and the bottom becomes less than perfectly clean. The boat ends up dangerously over-propped and the engines will be overloaded under many conditions.  Again, using Dirona as an example, Bayliner shipped the boat with 22x21x4 props. We’ve reduced pitch twice since it was new in 2000 and are now using 22X19X4 (see Avoiding Diesel Engine Overload for more details on how to know if you are correctly pitched).

When diesel engines are overloaded, they emit large amounts of soot. Black clouds aft are a sure sign that something is wrong and needs quick attention. I took the picture on the right back in 2004 at the end of the Memorial Day weekend. We were part of the usual stampede back to the Seattle area from the San Juan Islands, and I was amazed at how much smoke many of the boats were producing.  The boat pictured below is a Bayliner 4788 and its engine is seriously overloaded. The best thing the owner of that boat could do is remove 2” to 3” of propeller pitch. If they did that, they would find they spent less time cleaning soot off the back of the boat and the engines would be under considerably less stress. Our Bayliner 4087 produces no visible smoke when under power and its engines will likely last much longer than the engines powering the boat in the picture.   

Check to see if you are over-propped.  It’s surprisingly common and, if you are, reducing pitch is easy and cheap, will reduce or eliminate transom soot, and your engines will have a much better chance to living a long and healthy life. It’s nice not having to clean the transom at each stop and potential longer engine life is an additional benefit that is hard not to like. Dirona’s engines have just crossed over 3,600 hours and we’re hoping for many more smoke and trouble free hours in the years to come.

James Hamilton

jrh@mvdirona.com

The only thing worse than no backups is restoring bad backups. A database guy should get these things right.  But, I didn’t, and earlier today I made some major site-wide changes and, as a side effect, this blog was restored to December 4^th, 2007.  I’m working on recovering the content and will come up with something over the next 24 hours. However it’s very likely that comments between Dec 4^th and earlier today will be lost.  My apologies.

Update 2008.04.13: I was able to restore all content other than comments between 12/4/2007 and yesterday morning.  All else is fine.  I'm sorry about the RSS noise during the restore and for the lost comments.  The backup/restore procedure problem is resolved.  Please report any broken links or lingering issues. Thanks,

                        -jrh

James Hamilton, Windows Live Platform Services
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We always spent Christmas afloat, usually in Canadian waters. Some years we've travelled to the Sunshine Coast, Desolation Sound, or the Broughtons. This year we stayed closer to home, in the San Juan Islands. We had considered going to Barkley Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island instead, but didn’t have time to research safe anchorages for winter storms. In the end, we were glad we didn’t go—the storms were worse this year than any previous Christmas afloat, and the west coast of Vancouver Island receives the brunt of them. While winter storms are the downside of winter boating, the upside is that we have all the best anchorages to ourselves. And we love being safe at anchor while a storm rolls through, especially if we have a view out to the wind and waves.

Pictures and stories from the trip are posted at http://www.mvdirona.com/trips/SanJuansChristmas2007/.

This week, boxes of Cruising the Secret Coast were delivered to the warehouse at Robert Hale and Co. Click here for book details, including sample pages and an overview by Waggoner publisher Bob Hale, and to order online.

The book was a long time in coming. In 2002 we began researching what would become Secret Coast, and published our experiences in Pacific Yachting and PassageMaker magazines. And we sent our findings to Bob Hale, who printed many in the Waggoner Cruising Guide. At the same time, Jennifer also was working on a book describing the history of the Broughtons and surrounding area. Bob had reviewed several early manuscript drafts and provided critical feedback and advice.

By early 2004 we had enough material gathered to consider writing a cruising guide. The book was a natural companion to the Waggoner, and since we had been working so well with Bob as correspondents and on the history book, he was a natural choice as publisher. When we suggested the idea to Bob, he and the rest of team at Robert Hale and Co. were interested. We continued to gather material for the cruising guide and work on the history book until 2005, when it became clear that only one project could be done at a time. We decided to focus on the cruising guide and put the history book on hold.

Thus began an intensive two-year effort of writing, editing, map production, picture selection, and many, many, many rounds of reviewing and proof-reading. During that period we exchanged more than 1,500 emails with Bob and graphics designer Marni Erwin. Finally, following nearly a three-month print cycle overseas, the books have arrived. It’s wonderful to see the finished result.

We’ll be signing copies for the first time on April 12^th from 8am to 12pm at the 48° North/Fisheries Supply Boater’s Swap Meet. The annual event is popular. The Fisheries Supply upper and lower parking lots and the street west of the store will be open to people for selling, and Fisheries Supply also sells discontinued items at deep discounts. Although the official swap meet hours are 7am to 1pm, sellers start arriving at 4am to establish a good location, and the selling starts by 5am.