Advice on a Craftsman Marine engine

[BleedingNoob]

Hi,

I currently have a 30ft Muira and I want to upgrade the existing 20 year+ Yanmar 12hp engine to something with a little more power (~30hp).

It's been suggested to me to try a 27hp Craftsman Marine engine, but I haven't been able to find anything on them apart from the usual company blurb.

Has anyone had any experience with these engines? As far as I know they're ex-Vetus employees that marinise engines in the Netherlands.

I've looked at the 20 and 27hp Yanmar engines, but they are ridiculously expensive compared to the price of the Craftsman. The price of *just* importing the 20hp into South Africa (ex VAT and import duty) is almost equivalent to the total cost of buying the 27hp Craftsman, having it transported up from Cape Town, having it professionally installed by the dealer, the dealer testing afterwards and all the other required items needed

[Katiusha]

SA service center for Volvo, Yanmar, and Craftsman told us that those were the best made engines they've seen for recreational boats. We like ours so far, but it's had only 20 hours of use so far.

[GrowleyMonster]

Have you looked at the Universal or Beta engines? I am not familiar with the Craftsman but the Beta is a marinized Kubota tractor engine, and parts are cheap because you pay tractor prices and not boat prices. The Universal M-X25PB is rated at 26HP at 3000 RPM. There is a smaller one rated for 20HP that is designed as a drop-in replacement for the Atomic 4. Universal is now owned and manufactured by Westerbeke.M-25XPB26.000.030003 CylinderNatural61.21.00M-25XPB26.000.030003 CylinderNatural61.21.00M-25XPB26.000.030003 CylinderNatural61.21.00

[shakey doug]

They are starting to make inroads into the aussie market, so far nothing but good reports , i believe they use Mitsubishi engines as their base. These engines are popular in industry & agriculture so none marine specific spares should be cheap and easly sourced.
They also supply bobtail engines and a range of adapters to suit Volvo & yanmar saildrives.

[Katiusha]

In SA they are usually paired up with ZF drives

[BleedingNoob]

Thanks everyone for your comments

I had the dealer and engine installer out yesterday to see how the engine would fit.

Unfortunately, the existing engine (YSM12) is 150mm shorter than the 27hp even the 16hp won't fit without extending the engine bay box forward 150 - 200mm which will impact access to the galley

The other engines (Yanmar, Beta and Vetus) I've looked at are also too long by around 100-200mm.

It has been suggested to me to convert to a saildrive.

What's the general opinion about converting to saildrive?

I don't know much about saildrives, except that local people I've talked to all have varying opinions of them ranging from too expensive and difficult to maintain to "best change I ever did"...