Motoring an E-26 with a Westerbeke W 10 Two Diesel

[Aldo C]

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Does anyone have an Ericson 26 with a Westerbeke W 10 Two diesel? If you do, how fast does your boat motor? What is the maximum RPM you can run your motor at? At just over 3000 rpm our motor coughs black smoke, and won't go any faster. We always reduce the throttle to run it at or below 3000 rpm, where it runs fine. I think that the governor is keeping our motor from going any faster than 3000 rpms.
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The boat sails much faster than it motors. We can only motor around 5 knots / hour. We have only had the boat since last July 4th. It sails well, but our son in his Catalina 22 can loose us when we are motoring together. It also did very poorly when we motored with him on a river against a current.

We currently have a brass propeller on the boat. I don't know the pitch, but the diameter is 12 inches. Has anyone ever used a plastic propeller manufactured by Performance Propellers on your E-26 with this Westerbeke motor? What speed could you achieve?

We sail on the Chesapeake Bay, and sometimes have to motor for hours or 30 miles to meet the other members of our fleet, so being able to motor the boat near its hull speed is important to us.

Thanks, Aldo and Alice


This is my first question to this fourm, but I'm sure we will have more in the future. We have sailed on the Chesapeake Bay for over 30 years, and are really looking forward to putting this boat back into the water in the spring. Aldo

 

[Don Smith]

I have a 1985 E26 powered with a Yanmar 1GM, and get about 5 knots motoring in light wind and flat seas, so I think the speed you're getting is about right. Most sailboats sail faster in a decent wind than they do while motoring which I suppose is one reason they're called sailboats. I agree that there's probably a govenor restricting your RPM's, which is a good thing.

You can experiment with changing the prop pitch, but again, for this type boat, I think that your powering performance is about right.


Captain Don
Gitana E26