Bukh 10 motor

[Guest]

I'm looking for a keeler - up to 30'. Most available are built in the 70's and 80's and many seem to have a Bukh 10 as auxiliary which presumably is the original motor. Three questions:-

1. How good will the motor be after 30 years? Can they be rebuilt at reasonable cost?

2. I need something that can get up the Tamaki in an outgoing tide and a 20knot southwesterly. Is 10hp adequate?

3. I've heard these motors can be hand started. Is this correct?

Grateful for any advice. Cheers.

[Steve Pope 243]

The fact they are still in there after 30 years says something in their favour, I'm sure some of them will have navigated the Tamaki many times over that period, whether you need to be tide assisted when pushing the tide would depend whether it was a spring or neap tide. Re Overhaul call the agent at "The Engine room" I'm sure he will know if all parts are available.

[wheels 543]

An old solid reliable workhorse. Parts still available and well priced. Rust can tend to make them look worse than they really are. Although they did get a reputation for the flywheel coming off and doing several circuits of the Salloon, I am not sure it is really a justified reputation.

As for pushing power, well....they do OK. But 10Hp is on the low end for 30ft. It does however depend on what kind of boat it is. Some tend to be easy to push than others.

[lebleaux 8]

Yes you can start them by hand, I have remember doing it mid-tasman after the ships batteries went flat. If I remember rightly there is a decompression lever, you decompress the engine, get the flywheel a spinnin' and then flick the compression on and away she goes.

[Atom Ant 0]

Bukh 10's were put into alot of 28 - 30 ft yachts in the eighties. Good engines but undersized for the job. Take Young 88's for example, alot have since repowered with bigger engines around 18+ hp. Davidson 28's were spec'd with Bukh 10's by Rainbow yacht charters and they were fine provided there was no big chop or headwind.

 

Good reliable engines, yes they can be pull started, shook the sh*t out of any boat they were installed in, bloody heavy for 10 hp, underpowered for a 30 ft yacht IMHO.

[markm 30]

A sizable portion of the boat owning population avoid them like the plague, and for good reason.

 

Had Bukh motors for 20 years and never known of a part to ever be in stock,, nor could it ever be sourced in under six weeks, and they cost a fortune when you finally did get whatever it was you needed. That was circa 1985 through 2006, things might have since changed, don't know and are happy not to need to.

 

Yes, there is a hand crank so in theory it can be hand started. We even tried a couple of times. If you're a 600kg gorilla it may be a viable option for starting, probably not though, certainly we didn't even get a little bit close. Our experience was you opened the decompression lever, you spun it, you sweated, you close the lever and it stopped dead, have another try. Lost it's novelty value very quickly.

 

Should have the power to push most 30ft style boats of that era into 20kts and some chop, of course depends a bit on exactly what design and prop, may not be at all fast but you'd get there. Much more breeze and you'd have your patience tested, as others have said, it works but it is underpowered for the bigger boats in the size range you're looking at.

 

I'd get the motor of anything you're seriously interested in inspected as part of condition of sale but I'd probably do that if it were two years old, I seem to have acquired a healthy dislike for motors.

[w44vi 17]

Good reliable motor BUT 30 years old ! Yes they can be hand stared

[Guest]

My only experience with these was in a Marauder.

If you turned on the freezer compressor at idle when the engine was cold the load would stall it.

I like they way they are named after the way the single cylinder one sounds at idle though.

I have a 50 Hp Ford D series in mine, so cannot seriously bag anyone elses donk though for overweight, supersize noisiness.

[Murky 1]

We have a Bukh 10 in the 88. Over time, I have developed a grudging admiration for its reliability and fuel-miserliness but I don't think I will ever love it.

 

When we were looking for boats, I made the usual trade-off between price, overall condition, rig, sails etc - and engine - and I wish I had not been so quick to make the compromise but had instead kept looking.

 

Particularly in cruising mode (i.e. loaded and towing one or two dinghies) it lacks grunt in anything even resembling a headwind.

 

I have never believed we had enough money to install a new engine but we are now up to about half that cost, on both necessary work and attempts to extract more power.

 

If you can find a comparable boat that has already been re-powered - and I believe they are out there, just more rare - I think you would find it is worth it.

[GregW 28]

I agree a bit small. The family lotus 9.2 we had back in the 80s came with one, it soon got biffed in favour of a 20hp Yanmar. That said, there are some pretty fancy multibladed folding props out there now, possibly one of those might make better use of the existing power than the little two-bladers you see on most boats.

[Battleship 100]

I guess you are now getting an idea of the engine

Pretty agricultural low on power, big on weight and can be reliable but are now very old.

Plan on replacing the engine at some stage in the near future don't bother rebuilding it a nice new quiet powerfull engine is money much better spent.

[Guest]

Thanks guys ( I asume you are all guys) , Gives me a pretty clear picture.

Robr