New Beta Marine Engine Running Great

[jen1722terry]

Hey CDers!

For those of you following our installation of our new engine, we're happy to report that the new mill underwent two days of our personal sea trial and performed wonderfully! No smoke, quieter and with much less vibration than our old U-25 and very good fuel economy (less than 2 quarts/hour). The re-pitched prop was moving the boat very well at 6 knots at about 2300 rpm.

We want to particularly thank General Manager Neil Collins of Director/Robbinhood (D/R) for personally making some final adjustments to the throttle. The problem was the old Merriman Yacht Specialties steering pedestal. Using the Beta-recommened cables and adapter resulted in the throttle lever being back near the steering wheel at idle, not a safe situation. Neil personally fabricated a part and installed it which allows us to have a safe throttle lever position. It works great and appears ruggedly-made. Great job, Neil.

Andy Weirwiess, the Service Manager has also been very attentive to our needs and has showed daily concern for our welfare. Thanks Andy and his wonderful dog, George.

We're now due for re-tourquing of the flex-couple and engine bolts in the next few days as specified by the Beta manual. Not a problem, for we plan to stick around doing day sails until the big party here on Friday. Hope to see many of you CDers there before you start you cruise!

One more note that most of the delay in our engine was due to the Nautilus prop shop, which recommended the original prop pitch, which was wrong and then took three weeks to adjust it with re-pitching. D/R will not be using them in the future.

Some of you have asked for the pitch data on the new prop. It fills a page and is lots of numbers. If anyone really needs it, let us know and we'll try to find a scanner to email it to you.

All else well over here in lovely Georgetown, ME.