Sail - July 2018

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traditional bottom paint—buildup should

not be a problem. The course with the low-

est chance of grief is to continue to apply a

fresh coat every season before launch.

CHEAP PANEL BLUES

Q: I purchased a solar panel from an automo-

tive store to give my house batteries a trickle

charge over the winter. It is rated as waterproof,

but I found that just one seagull dropping took

the panel output of 0.75 amp down to almost

zero until I cleaned it of. Are all solar panels

this sensitive to a single pooparoo?

— J. Staats, San Diego, CA

GORDON WEST REPLIES

Inexpensive automotive/RV panels

may be internally wired up in

series, where a single drop of anything can

bring them down to minimal charging cur-

rent. Get a panel from a marine store! With

its parallel type interconnections, a single

bird drop won’t much af ect its output. h at

said, it is still a good idea to always keep so-

lar panels clean, think on a daily basis when

out at sea, in particular.

ENGINE COMFORT LEVEL

Q: I’m considering purchasing a 32-year-

old Ericson 26-2 with the original raw-

water cooled Yanmar 1GM10. There is no

record of total hours on the engine, (we’re

guessing 1,500-3,000) and no meaningful

records detailing any significant repairs,

rebuilds or replacements other than part of

the wet-exhaust system. “Routine” main-

tenance done by the current owner of six

years seems to be within guidelines. De-

spite the boat being in drop-dead gorgeous

condition, with many expensive upgrades

and improvements that speak to the really

quite lavish care afforded it, I’m gun shy of

the raw-water cooled 32-year-old Yanmar:

especially after three separate marine

diesel repair and maintenance companies

told me, “Stay away.” Am I possibly putting

myself in harm’s way without an engine

survey? (And what can they tell me any-

way?) Or not so much?

— Steve Kendall, Seattle, WA

NIGEL CALDER REPLIES

It’s not worth spending money on

an engine survey. Fundamentally,

all you need to know with an engine of this

age is whether or not it i res up reliably from

a cold start (make sure it is cold), and wheth-

er or not it overheats when fully loaded. If

it i res up, it will likely continue to do so for

some time to come. And if it doesn’t over-

heat then the cooling system is not plugged.

Of course, with an engine of this age you

could have a catastrophic failure at any time

(e.g. the cylinder walls corroding through).

However, if you do have any signii cant prob-

lems, it is not worth trying to repair, since an

engine of this size and horsepower rating is

not that outrageously expensive to replace.

Ultimately, I would suggest your decision is

largely dependent on your own psychology. If

you are a bit of a risk taker and can relax with

this old engine and otherwise love the boat

and the price is good, I would go for it. If, on

the other hand, the engine is going to cause a

continuous nagging doubt, then it’s going to

spoil your fun and may not be worth it. s

Always go with marine-specifi c solar

panels for generating power o shore