My original plan (and I always have a plan) was to buy Yanmars. I had decided early on in the planning that I wanted some half decent motors, new of course but with enough power to push me though a 25 knot head wind at around 7 knots. I had decided on 3 blade folding propellers too, 2 blades do just not seem to have the bite. The feeling was that somewhere around twin 50 hp should be enough

Yanmar motors had gone up in price quite a lot since I made an initial enquiry. I reckon I called every dealer in WA and a few in the eastern states - Anyway got a good deal with Volvo 54hp with 3 blade folding props and delivery, which worked out about $10,000 cheaper than the Yanmars and most other models too - and hell I like the colour too.

Dropping them IN

We had a heap of discussion about this and what we came up with worked really well. From carrying them up the steps to hiring a small mobile crane. Guess we sort of made a travelling crane of sorts. We rigged a bit of home made track - see side pic and used a couple of disused wheels from a trolley jack. One end of the track was bolted to a shed upright, the other end bolted to a piece of solid timber that rested on the bridgedeck and was strapped to the rear beam. Lift the engine up the side of the hull - pull it over the edge and lower away - worked a treat.

Controls

Something else I spent a lot of time thinking about was how I was going to control the throttle and gearshift. I have 2 helm positions and really wanted to control both engines from both positions. Options are: 1. Electronic controls, a few of these around but it works out pretty expensive, actually volvo have one that intergrates with the ECM system but it has to be matched to the engine serial number etc, it just seemed too hard, and if something goes wrong with the electonics then getting things fixed in a remote area might be an issue, but really I just could not afford the electonic version. 2. Cable controls using a single dual function unit so you have 4 cables from each location going to the motors. Trouble is you need a ungainly change over mechanism in the engine compartment. 3) Cables in Series - Teleflx offer a control a CH5600 which is designed for series operated controls - the only problem you need 2 of these at each location, but hell each one is about half the price of a dual control unit so at least cost is not an issue.

We have a tacho and I bought a temperature guage for each engine as well - was tempted by the ECM multi function display but its too expensive, a better option would have probably have been the NMEA 2000 gateway - well if I was going to use NMEA 2000 instruments.