Just curious as to what the engine manufacturer of choice is in the offshore fleet. CAT, Cummins, MTU, etc. What do you engineers prefer as far as dependability and maintainence-wise?
We have 5 CAT’s on my current boat (2x 3608’s, 3x 3406’s ) and although I’ve never been a fan of CAT’s, they haven’t had any serious problems at all. Four of them have over 20,000hrs. I will say though that the good thing about CAT’s is the ability to get parts virtually anywhere, even here in Alaska.
Most definitely Cat!
My vessel is equipped with;
2 x 3608’s
2 x 3406’s
2 x 3412’s
1 x 3306
There are other around here who swear by GM’s and EMD’s. My experiences have not been positive with that manufacturer. I have limited experience with Cummins so not enough data to say either way with those.
Cat or EMD mains, John Deere gens … On our tugs. They just run forever. Detroits do to but are twice as loud and 3 times as oily.
MAN m90 for mains. As for DG’s? Yanmar, and maybe Daihatsu…Anything but MAK. We ran cummins to operate cargo pumps which were OK, but I love the cummins in my pickup
[QUOTE=brjones;90892]MAN m90 for mains. As for DG’s? Yanmar, and maybe Daihatsu…Anything but MAK. We ran cummins to operate cargo pumps which were OK, but I love the cummins in my pickup[/QUOTE]
Oh my - my my ~
I run a fleet of 12 Cat 3500 engines, 2 EMD 12-645 turbo, 2 EMD 12-645 roots, 8 John Deere 6081’s, 1 John deer 6068, 2 John Deere 4045’s, one Cat 3304, one Cat D330, one cat C4.4, two Detroit 6-71’s, and a Detroit 4-71. Lets put it this way, not one engine has given us a bit of trouble except those Cat C9’s and I’ve only had them for 2 months. I literally told the service tech that each engine needs to come with its own service tech that lives on the boat with it.
EMD’s are great, Cat 3500’s are great. EMD parts support is good and small parts are cheap. Cat parts support is amazing but even small parts are expensive. You may pay little extra if you need something today instead of tomorrow but you save a lot not having to maintain a spare parts inventory. Just watch out with Cat, every engine seems to have a different turbo and it can be hard to get turbos on short notice if you blow one up. Cat is good about maintaining an inventory of two turbos in the world but fail 3 and you have problems. The John Deere’s have simply been the best. I have had problems with erosion of the aluminum timing cover in the water pump on the 4045 engines on one boat. A skim coat of Red Hand has completely eliminated that problem. Otherwise, the only problems have been one bad injector on a 6081 and one failed fuel pump. That’s over a combined 100,000 hours between 8 engines.
[QUOTE=87cr250r;90920]Lets put it this way, not one engine has given us a bit of trouble except those Cat C9’s and I’ve only had them for 2 months. I literally told the service tech that each engine needs to come with its own service tech that lives on the boat with it./QUOTE]
C9’s are great in trucks. The last gensets I worked with were raw water cooled. I had no issues on the sea water side but major erosion on the JW side. Cat said it was caused by “transients” and was an on-going study. I understand the C18’s are as bad, if not worse.
Maybe not supply boat-related, but I’ll throw my two cents out there. MAN medium speed, Sulzer low speed. MaK makes a decent engine, particularly those built before Cat bought them. An early-80s vintage MaK or MAN-Holeby generator is heaven.
Wartsila 32 is junk - V-engines worst. No major problems in 34,000 hours (burning MDO only), but they are worse than Cats concerning maintenance and ease of working on. Allen socket cap screws are going to be the death of me. Absolutely nothing is easy to get to. I’m convinced the plethora of cover panels and doors only exist to aggravate any engineer working on the godforsaken things. EMDs are good engines, but I try to stay away from any engine that has “hand holes” and not “head holes” or “walk-in” access. Disclaimer, I’ve never had the pleasure of working on the boats, only commercial ships.
Give me an older, maintained engine with simple design and ZERO electronics and even a Series 71 would be okay (marginally). Unfortunately with the “green” BS changing everything, 20 years from now we will need only a multimeter and signal generator to fix anything. Any engine that needs a laptop to diagnose issues is one over-designed POS.
As far as main engines on tugs, it is really hard to beat a EMD. I have worked on many different brands, and I even kind of like ALCO’s, and the older mechanical 3600 are decent as long as they are on diesel not HFO.
For generators I like Cat’s and John Deere’s.
I like the older Cat’s a mechanical 3400 or 3500 series is really hard to beat, if they fall into the H.P. range you need. But with todays emission’s they are kind of a thing of the past, much like the 2 stroke detroits. Which were good engines in there day, but that day has long passed. Even though I like Cat’s, I have a little less faith in the newer electronic engines.
The boat I am on now is diesel electric, and we have 6 of the 3516 C model Cat’s each rated at 2150 K.W. With being diesel electric DP2 class, run through a power managment system, I can’t think of another engine that would do what we ask of these to do. I have to keep 2 engines running at all times, one on each side of the buss, to maintain DP2 status. Sometimes these engines sit here for weeks with hardly no load on them, then out of the blue they jump up to 80% for a few minutes then back to sitting there with nothing on the board. If we had detroits or EMD’s on this boat we would be constantly battling stack fires. I have been around the 3516 C models now for several years, and other than a sensor going out randomly we have had very little issues, with them. Especially sice we only keep a 250 K.W. load on a 2150 K.W. generator for weeks at a time.
I have never been a big fan of Cummins, but they must be doing something right, they are the largest engine manufacture in the world that sells nothing but engines. With the market share they have, somebody must like them, it just aint me.
I feel each engine has its strong and weak points. Cats are good engines as are EMDs. The MTU on the fishing yacht gave very little trouble. It really comes down to proper maintenance. I enjoyed working on a B&W slow speed. Current boat has wartsila 12v32 engines on hfo that just seem to vibrate themselves to death. They are a nightmare to work on as there are shields and covers everywhere. Had to take half the engine apart to change a start air valve. Our cummins qsk19 harbor generator has been good so far. The QSk 60 barge generators have been a different story. In the end anything is better than a Pielstick.
I will always swear by EMD’s. Cat 398 / 399’s were not to bad as long as you had a good supply of o-rings. We had some John Deere Ballast Pump Engines that were pretty good also. The only problem with them was the mild steel they used for brackets and oil lines, the salt eat them up quickly.
[QUOTE=Tugs;91410]I will always swear by EMD’s. Cat 398 / 399’s were not to bad as long as you had a good supply of o-rings. We had some John Deere Ballast Pump Engines that were pretty good also. The only problem with them was the mild steel they used for brackets and oil lines, the salt eat them up quickly.[/QUOTE]
Salt? Couldn’t keep seals in the pumps? Where did the salt come from is what I am wondering. Just curious.
I would think heat exchangers…
[QUOTE=tengineer;91434]Salt? Couldn’t keep seals in the pumps? Where did the salt come from is what I am wondering. Just curious.[/QUOTE]
They were Deep Well Ballast Pumps and they were out on deck, plus they were mounted on the edge of the cargo deck. So if we were in any kind of weather they got hit with spray and it did not matter that they were in small houses the salt found it’s way inside.
Not one of my favorite engines but they were interesting to work on. Rathbun Jones, I remember having to make rounds to keep oil in the drip cups on the valve train.
I have always been partial to EMDs, but that is probably because I spent so many years running them. Alcos? Meh. . . I was working for Crowley when they bought the old Robin tugs and spent loads of time over at Fredeman’s Shipyard getting them back into running condition. I also ran a couple of the boats at different times, including a strike that I scabbed out on the West coast. What I don’t/didn’t like about Alcos was partially out of unfamiliarity, although I did spend quite a bit of time running and repairing them. When comparing EMDs to Alcos, I guess EMDs are the winner hands down just based on how much easier it is to do large maintenance/repairs on an EMD when compared to an Alco. I also have some significant sea time with a B&W. Those Danish don’t make any parts or tools that are light. It is a real pain in the ass to change out the water jacket seal, though. Oh, and like with any slow speed two stroke engine, cleaning the fuel oil purifiers and air boxes are always a joy. . . .
Had two Alcos on my last boat and we had nothing but problems. Always something wrong. Then again they were 25 years old haha.
Had Alco 16-251s for mains and 6-251s for dredge pump engines on the dredge I was mate on. They were original equipment circa 1981. Of course they had their in frame overhauls at the specified intervals. They must have been rock solid to have the hours that they had on them. Just don’t let them idle to long.
CAT!
Not that I know enough about engines to make an informed decision… but CAT is one of gCaptain’s biggest supporters, and I’ve never heard the engineers on my ships say anything but good things about them!
Worked on 2 tugs that were single screw powered by 16cyl Alco’s. they pushed good, smoked like a freight train, but we never had any major issues. I liked working on them & running those boats with them. Emd’s are my favorites due to reliability & easy to work on.