SHOULD WE BUY A DIESEL HYBRID ENGINE?

Welcome to a follow-up FTB Extra in which we discuss in more detail Esper’s engine issues. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel by clicking this link: https://www.youtube.com/user/spannerheadz?sub_confirmation=1 Since our last update we received an overwhelming level of support from around the world, from advice and ideas to links to spare parts and even a couple of engines. We really appreciate it, thank you to everyone who contributed.

Our engine situation is not something we’re taking lightly and so we’ve taken on board all your suggestions and carefully considered each option. In this clip we break them down for you and look at repairing the engine, getting a recon engine, consider an electric/hybrid engine alternative and look at new diesel engines. Also we’ll briefly discuss batteries. (con’t below)

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To help put all this in context it’s important to examine our situation and our requirements whilst living aboard. This alone has an impact on a couple of options so let’s break it down a bit more.

We’ve been living aboard Esper for ten years and we spend most of our time at anchor. We’ve crossed a number of seas and plan to do so again soon but right now we are cruising in between anchorages, reefs and rocks. Sometimes the weather can get hairy and in the past we’ve had to run our engine for hours at a time in order to get ourselves out of predicaments.

We have cruised and plan to cruise some more remote places. These remote places are sometimes a hundred miles or more from human habitation. This has a significant impact on parts and availability.

We love our technology and run laptops, tablets, smartphones and have a number of items to charge throughout the day, not least cameras and drone batteries.

We watch movies, play music and have other creature comforts that means we consume a fair amount of amps over a 24 hour period.

So, we put high demands on our domestic battery bank and we do not day-sail between marinas. This means we are relying on the boat to keep our batteries topped up daily. We don’t return to the mainland to plug in to the grid.

It’s worth emphasising that, despite not wanting to admit it, we rely on our engine daily. Sailing is all very well but the engine is the heart of Esper and as important as the sails. Many of the places we have visited in the last ten years wouldn’t have been accessible without the engine.

Links in this video:

Beta Marine: http://www.betamarine.co.uk/

Elco electric engines: http://www.elcomotoryachts.com/

Exide: http://www.exide.com/

Previous episode: https://goo.gl/kYYkrM

Practical Boat Owner article: http://marinedirectory.ybw.com/reprints/results_related.jsp?tem=ybw&id=89141

Article on LiFePO4 batteries: http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/lifepo4_on_boats&page=1

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Songs in this video are by:

CDK – “Once Again (Original Rumble Step Mix)”

Coffee Europe – “La Grande Dame”

Coruscate – “When You Go Away (Brazilian Lounge Mix)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W381Kpj6tUQ

DJ Lang – “Drops of H2O (The Filtered Water Treatment)”

JL Brock – “Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix)”
https://soundcloud.com/…/urbana-metronica-wooh-yeah-mix

Mykle Anthony – “We the People”
www.last.fm/music/Mykle+Anthony