I have had my 38ft twin
outboard at for 24 years - lived on it for 4 years. Great boat.
As has been said before by others, I really like sitting inside the
cabin when sailing. Our boat started off a little like the
Seawind 1000 - with an open
cabin. She now has a normal bridgdeck cabin but I made sure the new cabin still had the same great vision as the original. Get a great
autopilot and you spend hardly any time a the
helm. But the boat is safer as you walk around, keep an eye on things, keep yourself refreshed and happy. It's a great thing about
boats this size - being able to con the boat from inside.
As for outboards - I wouldn't take diesels if you gave them to me. Let's take some of the issues some people have with outboards.
- explosion risk - this is a bit of a furfy. Almost all cruising boats carry petrol for their dinghies. The amount needed to produce the correct stochiometric measure for explosions is really low. So this is a risk for all cruisers - not just petrol powered ones.
So what do you do - it's super easy. Have you
fuel tanks in the bridgdeck, vented straight down. Only a fool would have petrol
fuel tanks in the hulls and I have not seen any petrol cat with this setup. With the tanks in the wing and vented, you are perfectly safe. Check the tanks are high up and vented and there is no issue at all.
- long range motoring - this is one area where petrol is not as good. But
outboard powered cats are usually much better sailers. They don't carry shafts and folded props - so you don't need to
motor as much as a diesel cat. We never
motor into any headwinds above 8-10 knots
offshore - we sail. Yes you have to carry an extra jerry can in a calm. We did that when crossing Bass Strait and motoring about 160 miles - its not a problem. When empty the spare cans are light and are stored in the bow.
- cost - my outboards are so much cheaper to run than my mate's diesels. I can sell mine and buy another to swap one out for the cost of my mates last diesel
service. I can
work on them and take them home. I can take them to a
mechanic and save huge amounts on labour if needed. Heaps more
parts and heaps of spares.
- I am just in the throes of changing my cat to Coppercoat. If it works I will not hae to slip my boat for 5 years or so. If you have diesels you still have to pull the boat out to check anodes, or replace
gear oil, or because a cone
clutch has gone bad.
Diesels have huge problems with them along with advantages. If you like sailing, get a good sailing cat (look for daggerboards) and keep the bottom clean and the transom out of the
water.
-
Electrical generation - why would anyone want a generator? I had one 10 years ago and when it stopped I didn't replace it. Nowadays you can easily put 1000 watts of solar on your cat. Couple this with ovesrize lithiums and you won't run out of
power. I have 400 watts and never have needed a generator - and we run a fridge and
computers anchor winch etc.
-
Reliability - Yamaha four stroke high thrust outboards are super reliable. In 24 years I have had one go bad on me, and that was because I had no
fuel filter put dirty fuel into it. Within 30 minutes it was going again - no worries about injectors
- Smell,
noise, hassle - diesel smell can penetrate an
interior. Outboards are separate from the
interior of the cat. If you have to
work on one, you can
lift it off and
service it in the
cockpit - better than ergonomic issues with many diesel installs.
I have a mate who has a nice diesel cat. He had owned two outboard powered
Seawind 1000s. He likes his bigger boat but even though he is an
engineer he prefers the outboards he had - they just don't fit on production boats over 35ft or so.
So listen to the people who have lived with outboards - if the
installation is good and the sailers did not try to use them to motor
offshore - they are a great setup. I don't care that my setup doesn't motor in heavy headwinds offshore wonderfully - my outboards are tucked up and away and we are doing what we love - sailing into the wind! We motor when we have to, not because we prefer it.