9.9 HP high thrust?

[prooftheorist]

Has anyone successfully powered the Ariel with a 9.9 HP outboard?

Currently using a 8 HP 2 stroke Yamaha with remote. I feel she ALMOST gets to hull speed.

I realize that many OB well configurations have been customized over the years and will be different....my Ariel came with an Atomic 4, the prop shaft is still there and can still spin....but I suspect the A4 went a long time ago...possibly when she was named Mischief and came through the Eerie canal system.

Anyhow, any advice would help, as to what a captain has been able to fit.

Thank you!

[Bill]

Good idea to read the outboard threads in the Technical forum. Here on SF Bay, we found the 2-cycle 9.9 to be large and heavy, so most were never left in the well. The current 4-cycle engines require significant modifications of the well and lazarette. For one such modification, check out Ebb's Photo Gallery thread:

http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...D&daysprune=-1

Somewhere in the early posts you'll find the modification to his Ariel for a Yamaha 9.9 4-cycle. Since then, he's removed the engine and gone in a different direction.

[prooftheorist]

What was the direction?

[Bill]

Are you asking about Ebb's thread? The Yamaha mod, I believe is somewhere in the first third of the posts, but that's just a guess based on a recollection. Could be further in.

If it's the outboard thread, you really need to skim through the whole thread . . .

[ebb]

Had a Yamaha 8-4, extra long shaft, which I understood to be a choked-down 9.9, in the
same body. I could only move the damn thing with a block and tackle. 110lbs. Getting
older, I developed a real dislike for portable tools that aren't portable. And the frustration
of getting it out of the boat to take to a shop for fixing, which at the time I bought it was
it's best feature, seems just as ridiculous as a diesel beast fouling the accommodation.
Found a buyer on Craig's List.

What I did to the lazaret in A338 is extremely eccentric. Built-in tanks is extremely stupid.
Modern gasoline is full of solvents that eat plastic. And is extremely explosive.
If you are racing, the best you can do is a 6hp 2-stroke -- something you lift out of the
well and stash below.

Don't believe there was a problem getting the Y 8-4 XLS into the original well. It may
have been too tight. I opened the cockpit end up for tiller access and air. kept the width,.
but probably added a bit of length toward the transom. Didn't move the clampboard.

At the time I thought the tilt slot in the transom was unique. Happened by chance that
when fully tilted just the prop stuck out of the top of the transom. Seemed so cool it led
me to keep the gas outboard in the plans for years.

Pearson designed outboard weight, I think originally planned for no more than 50lbs.
With our extraordinary large lazaret lid, imco the idea was to lift the OB off its clamp
board and lay it on its side over the well when racing or sailing.


Imco, best auxiliary power to aim for is an electric inboard. Not new anymore. A number
of Commander's on the board are electric. If you have the money, you too can have a
low/no maintenance, quiet, odorless motor in your bilge. You are dragging a propeller.
Inboard electric motors are not yet a universal brand name, And for cruising some offer
a free turning prop that charges bats while sailing.

Decided to find an electric OB. But finding equivalent motors that can get us out of trouble
like a 10 or 15hp gas equivalent, is impossible. When I first looked into Elco, they were
putting a range of models together using the Yamaha frame. Now they secretly import
theirs from China, have only 3 models, and put no energy on promoting them. No XLS.
Don't think any sailor buys them. China Parson has no viable US dealer.
Lithium batteries are still way too expensive for normal humans. I've done the research.
(Under protest) I'm installing a Torqeedo Cruise 4.0TL. At about 50lbs plus four lithium
bats and two $900 chargers -- obscenely expensive. Crazy.
(We really should be getting excited about hydrogen fuel cells!)

The 'extra long shaft' of the Cruise is not the extra long of the Yamaha 8/9.9. The Germans
measure to the midpoint of the prop!*, rather than the cavity plate above the prop like
everybody else, making the Cruise barely a long shaft. Cruise has no cavity plate, because
it's true lineage is the trolling motor!

(from a copyshop zoom to scale from an online diagram, the actual measure on the long
shaft version of the Cruise4.0 to a plus two inch total immersion of the prop is: 22"
That knocks off about 7 1/2" from Tortqeedo's long shaft measure, 29.37", in essence a lie.
This may explain why CRUISE OBs are never seen on sailboats -- or found in cruise forums.
You can see why I believe this aberration can only be explained as an ethnic defect.
Yamaha 8/ 9.9-4 XLS to cavity plate: 25".) 25"XLS, are known as sailboat outboards.

Good luck.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
RANT
!* mid point of the prop. Is, without a diagram, a meaningless shaft measurement.
The correct and informative length would be a comparable one that measures to the
designed bury of the prop in water. You know, like gas motors do -- which electric people
constantly compare their motors to. Another ethnic peeve I have with Torqeedo is that to
tilt the motor, not only do we have to reach 1/2 way down the shaft to trip a locking lever,
but the motor cannot be tilted up more than 45 degrees! Incredibly DIM Torqeedo
designers "Improving the gene pool by removing themselves from it!" (Darwin Awards)
Another anomaly is their using customers as guinea-pigs to come up with 'improvements',
while giving them a hard time getting legitimate breakdowns fixed.
Torqeedo is NOT a sailboat cruiser friendly company.

Electric OB motor importers and manufacturers have consistently made it difficult for us
to make the cross over to electric easy. Which is I believe where we're all headed.
Torqeedo is headed toward bigger bow waves & roostertails with their electrics. They're
leaving sailboats behind. They do not offer an XLS of sufficient HP for under 30' sailboats.
Their $8,000 Cruise 10.0/20hp equivalent, 25"XLS, measure to a cavitation plate --140lbs.
requires a minimum of 4 inhouse lithium bats at $2500 and 50lbs each to power it.
Plus accessories, makes the Cruise 10.0 a $20,000 OB investment, not including solar
and wind. Cruise4.0 short setup sadly is an outrageous $12,000 to $15,000 investment.

The German outboard name Torqeedo sounds alot like a Japanese product. Styling, also,
looks quite Japanese to me. Too bad. If the motor was, its cockeyed personality would be
replaced with a perfectly engineered, perfectly designed Torqando -- at half the cost!

[prooftheorist]

Thanks Ebb, much appreciated. I do not enjoy pulling my OB out of the well after every time I sail, and I never leave my Yamaha 8 HP in the water, as I am moored in Miami (I can handle how crazy it is...I'm from here) and the hot saltwater just eats everything it touches and gets rapidly covered in growth. I can not tilt it.

I would love to be able to sail right off of mooring, but Biscayne Bay is so shallow I can only head direct to the ICW, then I have to open a bridge and queue with other boats in the channel for about 1.5 hours to get to open water around 6 feet depth. Obviously that requires stable power.

I looked into the torqeedo.....hoping the prices get lower, I love the direction they are going.

I sailed my Ariel (Louise Michel) down the ICW from Brooklyn to Miami, and then to Bimini, Berry Isalnds, and Sea of Abaco. I recall the 4 knot current in Cape Fear River, and the 3.5 knots of the Gulf Stream, which is maybe why I am obsessed with having closer to 10HP. I just want to see her at hull speed under power! I remember seeing a fully restored Alberg 30 motoring at hull speed in the Dismal Swamp Canal....it was a sight of beauty in the flat water, moving along in her own wave.

[ebb]

Electric motors give you instant full power thrust.
Seems what you can use in those Florida shallows.
You also get seamless instant reverse.
The problem is getting the batteries charged
with enough square footage of panels on a
small craft like the Ariel... when you're cruising.

The only way to find out is to try to solve it by
diving in.