One Motor vs. Two Big Motors vs. Kicker Motor

Evirude twin outboards-improved offshore safety, but at a cost

Twins at work. Courtesy BRP

Large motor with kicker motor - sofe safety improvements, but is it enough?

Big + little motors on a wide transom. Courtesy BRP

For years, outboard motors were considered too unreliable to take offshore without a backup engine of some sort. People with lots of disposable income usually opted for twin engines, if their transoms could handle it. As a second, less desirable choice, people would install a smaller kicker motor (4 – 25 HP, depending on hull size) to get them back in at slow speed.

With the advent of more reliable outboards, better communications tools, and offshore towing services, that picture has changed.

Kicker Motor Downsides:

When we approached two different motor dealers (both avid offshore fishermen) about purchasing a kicker motor, their response was “don’t bother with a kicker motor, unless you want to slow troll with it“.  Their logic was:

  • New outboards rarely fail nowadays
  • If you have a small kicker motor, you will only be able to make 3 – 8 MPH headway with it in calm seas and good weather. You may not be able to make any headway at all in high winds and big swells. Plus, unless a kicker motor is used regularly, it can become very unreliable

Twins/Multiple Engine Downsides:

As a side note, we also discussed multiple outboards, even though TB2 is too small to consider that option. Their position:

  • If your twin motors are correctly propped, you will probably not be able to plane the boat on one motor without changing the prop.
  • This can be very difficult to do safely at sea, especially in rough water and bad weather
  • Multiple engines are probably not worth the cost from a safety standpoint, although you might want it for other reasons (like SPEED)
ACR EPIRB - satellite emergency beacons improve safety offshore

An Emergency Position Indicator Beacon (EPIRB) is a good thing for offshore fishermen.

Alternative Choices…

Given the above, they felt the money for a kicker motor could be more wisely invested in:

  • The best VHF radio and antenna possible
  • A good sea anchor
  • An Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB)
  • A membership in a towing service that will go offshore. In Southern California, both Vessel Assist and Sea Tow offer such services
  • A satellite phone, if there’s money left over

If you encountered an unrecoverable problem with the motor, you would do the following:

  • Throw out the sea anchor to stabilize the boat’s attitude and slow drifting
  • Call on the radio or sat phone for help
  • As a last resort, activate the EPIRB

That argument made a lot of sense to us. We’re still working on the satellite phone, but the other pieces are in place on Toy Boat 2. We have an electric trolling motor that we use for position control and slow trolling, but it’s not there for safety reasons.

Can You Really Do Repairs at Sea?

We used to carry a lot of parts and tools, thinking that we could be self-sufficient and repair many problems on the water. However, with modern engines there are fewer and fewer things that you can (or will have to) repair at sea:

  • Fouled plugs are rare with 4-strokes and new DFI 2-strokes
  • If you damage a prop in heavy seas, it will be difficult-to-impossible to safely change the prop from inside the boat
  • You are not going to be able to service major engine components that fail at sea

So what can you do? After scratching our heads for a while, it seems like the most likely things that we could address would be:

  • Blown fuses (carry extra fuses and possibly a fuse puller)
  • Dead batteries (have a second battery and/or pull starter)
  • Clogged fuel lines/filters (spare filters and fuel bulb, small hose clamps, filter wrench)
  • Low oil (carry extra oil, plus an oil filter if you have a 4-stroke engine)
  • Clogged water pump (might be able to dislodge something stuck close to the exhaust port)
  • Nuts or bolts that have vibrated loose (extra nuts and bolts, plus matching wrenches)
  • Engine stuck in an undesirable tilt position (a large screwdriver to manually release the trim-and-tilt)
  • A hose that comes loose (hose clamps)
  • A through-hull that comes loose (fids to plug holes)

So that’s how we’ve stocked our toolbox. Of course, old habits die hard, so we still carry a spare prop (in this case, a Piranha composite with blades removed), two spare prop nuts and thrust washers and cotter pins “just in case” We also have a face mask, snorkel, and fins tucked away in case we need to go over the side for a look in warm water (thankfully, we’ve never had to do that).