Re: Which motor to buy?
Is your boat about 14ft? If you only boat with one or 2 people the 40 will work fine.
Take a close look at the Evinrude Etec. No service for 3 years or 300 hours,no breakin,fewer less complicated service intervals.The 40,50 and 60 are based on the same engine.
Just checked on line saw a 40 tiller electric.for $4,500.
Yep - 4.2 metres - 14 foot or thereabouts.
I have no doubt a 40 would work fine, however after doing my research here and on other forums, it would appear that I would be mad not to spend the money and get the highest horsepower rating that I can.
Evinrude Etec wasn't really on my shopping list due to the extra cost. However, I saw a review comparing the Etec with other 4 and 2 stroke motors (all 40hp IIRC), and the fuel use and oil use figures are very attractive to me. Around 4 litres, or a gallon an hour less than the other motors - I live close to a rather long river and I'd like the extra range.
Craig Huett also recommended the Etec, said it'd pay for itself in the long run (Mr Seahorse - you didn't warn me, that guy can talk!!! Certainly would appear to know his stuff though). I'm not 100% sure that it will, it will depend on how much I use it - but it looks like the better product anyway. If nothing else, the resale value is likely to be much better (if I manage to keep it in good nick!).
I've got the easter break to think about it, then I'll probably make a decision next week. Fingers crossed!
I didn't have time to tell the tale of woe that is my current motor last time I posted, so I figured I'd mention it . . .
I bought this boat in late January, it was very much an impulse buy - a bargain on Ebay. I was assured it was in perfect mechanical order and certainly it seemed that way to my untrained eyes.
Anyway - took it out, everything ran great. After my third trip I got a couple of mates together and we hit Sydney Harbour for a day's fishing.
We didn't catch a thing - except for the burley bucket's rope around the prop . . . We'd lost the burley bucket earlier and didn't realise the rope had wrapped itself around the prop. So when the motor started over-revving and we lost most forward speed, lifting the engine up revealed that culprit. We unwound the rope, then the motor worked fine for the next couple of minutes - we'd spun the propeller hub, and we had to travel the last 4 miles or so to the boat ramp at about 2 knots (lucky we were able to move at all!).
So - took it in for repair and for service. Needed a new prop, new water pump, and a few other things doing to it - $700 and a couple of weeks later, good to go. I wanted to try it out so I took it straight to the Nepean river and launched. It was great - I was getting 30 knots, a full 4 more than previously. Ran perfectly for half an hour . . . then the engine lost power and the boat went from 30 knots down to about 5. Throttling back to idle, the motor lost power completely. I managed to restart it and travel a little distance - after a while, the overheat alarm sounded, so I shut it off - restarting this time was a complete failure. After a few failed attempts the motor wouldn't turn over at all.
So after an hour of being stuck in the middle of nowhere in a national park with no mobile phone reception, I managed to flag down some waterskiiers who generously towed me to a nearby boat ramp, then drove me the 15km or so to where my car was.
Back to the shop - this time, the culprit was the Power Pack. It'd failed, so one cylinder wasn't sparking. My attempts to restart had destroyed the solenoid and some coils in the starter motor.
I reluctantly parted company with another $600 of my hard earned after being assured that the motor was otherwise basically fine, and another couple of weeks later I got the boat back. This time, before going out, I bought an electric trolling motor - I wasn't going to be caught with my pants down again! I figured if worst came to worst I could troll until I found somewhere that I could hail a taxi from.
Took the boat out - motor ran perfectly. For all of 5 minutes. I'd throttled back to idle, and the motor just stopped - and no amount of restarting attempts would get it going again. Trolling motor managed in 40 minutes or so to get me back to the ramp.
So this time it's some other electrical doobelacky which acts a bit like an alternator apparently, providing spark. Supposedly not the powerpack (which is believable enough as the symptoms were different). They're saying it would cost me $500 minimum.
I could repair it. But my confidence in that motor is completely shot. I'm slightly pissed off with the mechanics, whether reasonably or unreasonably, I feel some of that money could've gone towards repowering the boat. Still - "a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into", and I figure a lot of my troubles are my own fault - what do you expect from a cheapie from Ebay?
Anyway - that's my cautionary tale of woe. And another reason to look closely at the etec's 5 year warranty . . .
