Cost Of Converting Honda Short Shaft Outboard To Long Shaft?

[morris_rl]

I am volunteering with the American Tall Ship Institute's (ATSI) tall ship "Bill of Rights" in Channel Islands Harbor in southern California. We use a Honda 20hp long shaft outboard motor on our inflatable dinghy. The dinghy serves as our bow thruster. See:

http://www.americantallship.org

This motor is on loan to us from Island Packers. I saw an ad on our local Craigs List for a 2006 Honda 20hp outboard motor with a short shaft. The asking price is $1650 or best offer.

Does anybody here have a good idea as to the cost and feasability of replacing the short shaft with a long shaft?

Ideally, we would like to get a used Honda 30hp Honda outboard motor with a long shaft, as the 20hp honda is almost not up to pushing 180 tons of ship with a ten foot draft.

Does anybody here know where one might find one, and the approximate price? The Skipper is adamant that he wants a Honda outboard.

If you want to take it to e-mail, my e-mail address for my ATSI work is:

rodger.l.morris@gmail.com

C-Dory content:

I am still saving my shekels to buy a C-Dory 22 or a Marinaut 215. That said, if you think a few feet of extra boat length will vacuum your wallet clean, imagine what a 137 foot long wooden tall ship is doing to my wallet...



Thanks in advance!!

[T.R. Bauer]

It wouldn't be worth it in my opinion. By the time you order all the parts from the local Honda dealership, take them back because they ordered the wrong parts, pay frieght and labor, you'd be money behind. Just buy the 30 hp motor you need. Now, if you have a long shaft parts motor around with everything to do the change over, that is another story as the conversion would be very quick, easy, and inexpensive.

[thataway]

If the outboard were one of several other brands, it would be easier to find a spacer, longer shift linkage, water tube and output shafts. The Honda is a less frequently used outboard especially in the 20 hp power range. I would call a Honda dealer and see what the parts cost--I would guess about $500, based on other brands which I have converted in the past.

Incidently we sailed along side the Bill of Rights in Maine and other New England states in the late Summer and Fall of 1983 (America's Cup)--at that time she did not have an inboard engine (I believe that a Cat 3208 was put in place during the early 1990's). At that time they had about a 200 hp engine in the Yawl boat-but it was rarely used in docking--most was done under sail only, if there was enough room. The Yawl boat was occasionally used as a "Thruster"--I would think that 20 hp is way under powered for that purpose--and would agree that a considerably larger outboard would be advisable.

[morris_rl]

Both of you, thanks for the replies!!

Bob,

I'll relay what you said about the diesel not being in place in 1983 to the current skipper, as he says in his passenger briefings that the diesel was added in 1976, five years after S/V Bill of Rights was launched.

We are using the Honda 20hp outboard because it is a loaner from Island Packers. Our 50hp Evinrude outboard motor broke down, and is not completely reliable after repair. Plus, it's quite heavy...

We are a startup charity with essentially no money, and the outboard motor was a single point of failure, and continues to be so.

The current Honda 20hp outboard is grossly underpowered for what we need to do, but it does the job, and it has the virtue of being light enough that any crew member can use it. A Honda 30hp outboard motor would be a good compromise between our weight and performance needs.

We just launched a partnership with the Sea Scouts and the Mariner Girl Scouts two weeks ago. So far, we have done a three hour coastal sail and a "Work and Sail" weekend.

The Scouts and leaders spend the night in the "A" compartment (16 berths) after sailing with us on Saturday afternoon. It's a free program for the Scouts, as they fall solidly within our charter and mission statement.

We are working with them to train them as crew members; we'll need additional volunteer crew during the summer when we do some private charters to support our real work. At some point in the future as our finances improve and our program grows, we may even be able to hire a few of them as paid crew members.

We are also gearing up to sail more Wounded Warriors as our guests. The first such cruise in December of 2010 went so well that we have decided to expand the program and to include Wounded Warriors from all conflicts.


C-dory content:

Any C-Brat who is going to be in the Channel Islands Harbor area can e-mail me beforehand. I'll be happy to invite you to sail with us on S/V Bill of Rights as our guests.

There is no quid pro quo involved. As a volunteer crew member, I can invite a few guests on a "space available" basis.


Best,

[rogerbum]

Rodger,

Maybe one of the scouts can do a repair of a motor for the boat as an Eagle project. We had a scout in our troop who did work on engine on the steamship Virginia 5 in Seattle as his Eagle project. He raised funds and did a lot of work on the engine himself. Here's a photo of the boat.

[morris_rl]

Roger,

I think that is a truly excellent idea!! I have relayed it to Stephen Taylor, the ATSI Executive Director and to the person who reviews and approves Eagle Scout projects in Camarillo, California.

Are you aware that your name and mine are variants of a millenia old German name that (poetically rendered) translates as "Famous Warrior"?

Hrod or Hroth = Famous
Gar or Ger = Spear => Spearman => Warrior

In the German saga Beowulf, the aged king of the tribe of the Geats was a famous warrior known as Hrothgar.

Hrothgar = Hrodger = Rodger = Roger = Rogelio


C-Dory content:

The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary (USCGA) escorted S/V Bill of Rights out of Channel Islands Harbor on Saturday, 04 DEC 2010 when we sailed 3 U.S. Coast Guard and 18 U.S. Navy Wounded Warriors and a like number of able bodied shipmates. The USCGA vessel that escorted us was a C-Dory 22 Cruiser.


Best,


Rodger