Diesel Dinghy?

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Bluto

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Hi all, I have another question. I was thinking about dinghy engines. Were I to get a boat I would like to have an outboard powered dinghy. The drawbacks of stowing gas on board had me looking around for alternative engines for one. There is propane, electric, gas or diesel.
So anyway, if you got in a fix and the (single) engine was out, it might be possible to tow the boat with the dinghy if you had enough fuel and the patience to actually get anywhere. This would rule out gas, (small fuel can) and propane would be limited to your cooking/heating supply. The odds against ever needing 10 tanks of propane would put me off storing that much aboard all the time, so it wouldn't be there.
I came upon these diesel outboards:

Diesel Outboards | Klaxon Diesel Outboards

Does anyone have experience with these or any other diesel outboards, and if so, what do you think of them, their costs and their utility?

It would be great to have unlimited dink fuel aboard without using up all the propane and no explosive gasoline to stink up the boat.

Feel free to straighten me out, I need the info to further my scheming and dreaming.
Thanks to all and I really enjoy reading and living vicariously through your excellent forums.
 
Greetings,
Mr. Bluto. Outstanding idea. Better still, the LHD series could be used as a get-home mounted on the swim step (adequately braced of course). @.5 GPH (for the 15.5HP) you could go a heck of a long way with trawler capacity tanks.
 
Great idea. I thought it would also serve as a get home engine.:dance:

BUT EPA knows more than you, so forggetttaboutit.:banghead:

100 years from now, they will look back at these years and both the Democrats and Republicans will be recognized as the second coming of the Know Nothing party.:eek:

No science, just politics 24/7.:hide: I can't believe that in the 60's we actually were so stupid as to think that science could help us.:oldman:
 
RT Firefly said:
Greetings,
Mr. Bluto. Outstanding idea. Better still, the LHD series could be used as a get-home mounted on the swim step (adequately braced of course). @.5 GPH (for the 15.5HP) you could go a heck of a long way with trawler capacity tanks.
Click to expand...
Hi!
I'm just Bluto, man :)
I'm not qualified to scrape barnacles at this point! :D
I like that idea, you could arrange a solid mount that isn't too conspicuous then pop it off there and stow it in the lazarrette. Beats heck out of driving the dinghy all day in the heat and weather.
It could do double duty as a dinghy engine. There must be something wrong with these outboards or you would see them in use, wouldn't you?
 
Last edited:
Wxx3 said:
Great idea. I thought it would also serve as a get home engine.:dance:

BUT EPA knows more than you, so forggetttaboutit.:banghead:
Click to expand...
Oh, Noooes!
Not those morons again! So they have some beef with diesel outboards when the entire sea-faring world lives with diesel powered ships.
That must be the catch, right there...

Bluto sad. Heck with it, I'd run one anyway, if I decided it was the way to go.
:dance:
 
RT Firefly said:
Greetings,
Mr. Bluto. Outstanding idea. Better still, the LHD series could be used as a get-home mounted on the swim step (adequately braced of course). @.5 GPH (for the 15.5HP) you could go a heck of a long way with trawler capacity tanks.
Click to expand...

We think a like. :eek:
 
After watching their video, sans video, I did see some future income for me. Doing voice overs in Asia. Three years from now, Stay tuned.
 
Tried to open the link to the diesel outboards but didn't succeed.

One potential downside to a diesel outboard would be weight, assuming that they are heavier than gasoline outboards of the same HP. That could be an issue for handling and weight distribution on a dinghy.
 
They are heavy check the weights in the link given on the first page.
 
Steve said:
They are heavy check the weights in the link given on the first page.
Click to expand...
Yep, 10 HP electric start, 47 kg. (103.4 lbs)

Well.. that certainly is a drawback. I guess they have some cast iron involved in those rascals. To be fair they claim that a lower hp rated diesel can do the job of a larger gasser. I don't quite get that.
The outboards would have to have a high pressure injector pump so
I imagine that adds weight (and cost).

So weight and legal issues have to be considered.
 
Last edited:
I tried a number of different ways to get to their site, to no avail. Perhaps I'll have better luck later.

It would be interesting to see how their outboards stack up to gasoline outboards weight wise. For example my Yamaha 9.9 four stroke weighs 91 pounds. Would a diesel come in at 10% higher? 20%? 30%?
 
Bluto said:
Yep, 10 HP electric start, 47 kg. (103.4 lbs)

Well.. that certainly is a drawback. I guess they have some cast iron involved in those rascals. To be fair they claim that a lower hp rated diesel can do the job of a larger gasser. I don't quite get that.
The outboards would have to have a high pressure injector pump so
I imagine that adds weight (and cost).

So weight and legal issues have to be considered.
Click to expand...

That isn't so bad. My Yamaha 9.9 is 12 pounds less but also is a manual start. Put an electric start on it and I suspect that the weight difference wouldn't be significant. Mind you, a 2 stroke 9.9 manual start comes in at 79 pounds but they are hard to get these days, at least new.
 
Yanmar used to make diesel outboards.
 
Conrad said:
That isn't so bad. My Yamaha 9.9 is 12 pounds less but also is a manual start. Put an electric start on it and I suspect that the weight difference wouldn't be significant. Mind you, a 2 stroke 9.9 manual start comes in at 79 pounds but they are hard to get these days, at least new.
Click to expand...
The 2 stroke 9.9 is a breeze to pull through, where I imagine that 10 hp diesel would take Arnold to spin up.. :lol:
That's why I quoted the elec start model's weight.
 
Bluto said:
The 2 stroke 9.9 is a breeze to pull through, where I imagine that 10 hp diesel would take Arnold to spin up.. :lol:
That's why I quoted the elec start model's weight.
Click to expand...

Agree - we can't all have an Arnold in our back pocket!

I've been trying to find specs on an electric start Yamaha 9.9 four stroke for a direct comparison to the diesel, but no luck. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the kind of reasonable weight of the diesel outboard - as long as you don't compare it to the now hard to find two strokes.
 
Tohatsu makes diesel outboards. I saw a Panga here in seizure with two rather small one's on the back. They said they seized it near Puerto Rico and it had come from Columbia loaded with dope. That's pretty far, figured fuel efficiency, and small radar "footprint" was reason.
Impressed me. They must sell them in South America. I made "note to self".
 
I had a 7kw diesel outboards on my tri, it was the get home. It worked well but was just too heavy for me to handle by myself in a seaway and I didn’t want it on the stern all the time. I replaced it with a 9 hp 4 cycle gas outboards. My next boat, which is in the yard, had a 40 hp yanmar driving a hydraulic pump, now redundant. I am building a dingy around this engine to act as a tender/get home.

 
why does everybody make such a fuss with storing a little ( 15 gal max ) gas on board? It really isn't a issue unless the skipper is a moron.
Store it in a on deck locker, turn over the fuel every few months.. enjoy boating.
I cannot imagine the noise of a diesel hanging off my inflatable.. or the weight.
My 15hp Yamaha 2 stroke s.s. weighs 80 lbs.. on a 11' Zodiac it's just right.
Klaxon's 10hp weighs 171 lbs ! a real pig.
HOLLYWOOD
 
hollywood8118 said:
why does everybody make such a fuss with storing a little ( 15 gal max ) gas on board? It really isn't a issue unless the skipper is a moron.
Store it in a on deck locker, turn over the fuel every few months.. enjoy boating.
I cannot imagine the noise of a diesel hanging off my inflatable.. or the weight.
My 15hp Yamaha 2 stroke s.s. weighs 80 lbs.. on a 11' Zodiac it's just right.
Klaxon's 10hp weighs 171 lbs ! a real pig.
HOLLYWOOD
Click to expand...

I'm confused. Is the Klaxon 10 HP 171 pounds or 103 pounds? That's a huge difference. (I still can't access their site.)
 
I would apologize, I made a mistake in looking at the specs. The 47 kg is for the 5 hp model. Hollywood is right.
My bad. These things are pretty heavy.
 
Thanks Hollywood and Bluto. That makes more sense in that in general diesel engines are significantly heavier than their gasoline HP counterparts. Oh well.
 
Maybe if you were powering a big dinghy, and didn't need for speed, the 5 or 7 hp outboards might work out.
The 10 would make a great slow-turning trolling motor, and it could pop along all day.
Then there's the range you would have as a get home. Maybe with a davit on the stern...
:whistling:
 
Thirty years ago it was tough enough to handle a five-horsepower Seagull outboard.
 
Last time I checked (years ago) the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)) had banned the sale of diesel outboards in the United States. Has this changed?

Marty
 
hollywood8118 said:
why does everybody make such a fuss with storing a little ( 15 gal max ) gas on board? It really isn't a issue unless the skipper is a moron.
Store it in a on deck locker, turn over the fuel every few months.. enjoy boating.
I cannot imagine the noise of a diesel hanging off my inflatable.. or the weight.
My 15hp Yamaha 2 stroke s.s. weighs 80 lbs.. on a 11' Zodiac it's just right.
Klaxon's 10hp weighs 171 lbs ! a real pig.
HOLLYWOOD
Click to expand...

I don't!!!:D

Carrying gas on bard is no big deal safetywise and even my bloodhound nosed girlfriend complains more about the fuel dock 4 slips away than the 10 gallons of gas stored right next to the window and hatch adjacent to our bed.

I carry 15 gallons on the tow boat in jerry cans and as I pound through waves, often some leaks out and drains back into the pilothouse and bilge...in 25 years the boat has not blown up or caught fire....for it to get to those concentrations...it takes a lot of work or a one in a million chance. So if you even try a LITTLE bit to be safe...chances are you will be and never smell a thing.

Most women (and a lot of men) I know would be way more offended by storing diesel above deck and smelling diesel exhaust from the dingy.

Don't even get me going on how big and heavy diesel outboards are..have used a few through the years and I wouldn't want one for general dingy work. The last one I reconditioned, test ran and hung on a skiff was a 27hp Yanmar..what a monster....it was headed for the Gulf oil spill on a NRC boat
 
They make some interesting inboards as well. Just looking at the little slow turning 3 cylinder inboard. 33hp @ 1020 rpm, comes with both electric and recoil start for a backup.
 
The idea of using your main engine fuel to power your dinghy motor makes all kinds of sense. Unfortunately I think the available diesel outboards are just too heavy for use as dinghy motors. Heck, four cycle gasoline engines are borderline too heavy.

You could pull your main diesel out and replace it with a gasoline engine. Yeah I know, I wouldn't do it either.

I think the conclusion is that if you want to use your dinghy engine as a get home engine, you need to carry enough gasoline or propane to do the job.

For me, propane wins that choice. You already carry propane for cooking that could be used to power the outboard. Additional propane can be stored long term without going bad.

Gasoline is messier to handle, has a limited shelf life and you're introducing a third fuel that you have to carry.
 
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