Starting engine when batteries are dead

[Jammer]

Do you have a means of starting your propulsion engine in the event that all battery power is lost? Did you arrive at this redundancy deliberately or as a side effect of other goals?


How often have you had to use this capability?


Do you carry an extra starting motor and the tools necessary to install it?

[zboss]

Yes. We can gang our starter battery with our house bank. Also, we have a Honda 2000 generator. Yes, we carry a spare starter and yes all the tools as needed.

We only have had to use it occasionally.

[Scott Berg]

I have a LI jump starter that will start our engine; never needed it...

[newhaul]

Have solar, a jump pack and the hand crank for my engine and yes it does start with the hand crank.
Volvo md2

[lockie]

Use the decompressors. Have a way to switch the starter at the engine (could be crew at the control panel, or just a piece of wire if solo, but be verrrrrrry careful) , then drop the levers once it spins, and off you go.


A jumper lead with a footswitch will also allow you use your hands to hand-crank it if that's necessary and/or drop the compressors while you keep the cranking going.

[Bruce K]

A friend had a boat with a 3lw Gardner and 2uc gearbox, by decompressing each cylinder and leaving the box in ahead, pushing with a dinghy with 15hp outboard he was able to "clutch start" the engine, by un decompressing one cylinder at a time; try that with any "modern" engine.

[RaymondR]

On my previous boat I was occasionally obliged to use my inverter welder on a 2.2kw genset to start the engine. It blew the capacitor on the genset every time and I would not try it on one of the inverter gensets.

[Lepke]

I commercial fished tuna. At night just shut down and drifted, so had to be able to start. I still have 2-8d start banks and my generators have their own battery.

[Steve Bean]

Check YouTube for "inertial starter." It uses a hand-cranked flywheel to store energy; they have been used on airplanes and tanks. Good luck obtaining one... There are also spring starters, available commercially, a that use a spring to store hand-crank energy. Search on internet for these. There are also other ways to crank an engine, including using a rope or strap wound around the flywheel. Use ingenuity to apply energy to the rope or strap. Sometimes a tiny bit of ether starting fluid can help in a difficult starting situation especially in an engine that normally uses glow plugs. Emphasis on "tiny."

[lockie]

I recall seeing a YouTube post years ago where a bloke used a line from the main boom run through blocks to the engine, where it was wrapped around the crankshaft pulley.


Then...…….gybe-o, followed by vroom vroom!

[thomm225]

Many of the smaller diesel and gas engines at least back in the day (1970's) came with a hand crank...……

Otherwise you may just have to sail (or anchor) for a while and allow your solar to recharge one of your batteries

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Do you have a means of starting your propulsion engine in the event that all battery power is lost? Did you arrive at this redundancy deliberately or as a side effect of other goals?

How often have you had to use this capability?

Do you carry an extra starting motor and the tools necessary to install it?

Yes with redundancy, as designed in, twice, and sorta-kinda coincidentally.

The built-in part is a) twin engines with separate start banks and a parallel switch to combine when necessary, and b) generator with it's own battery so I can charge main engine start banks from that. Coincidental tertiary back-up is that I can use the battery from our dingy outboard to start the generator if necessary.

I've had to use the parallel switch twice on this boat, both times after trolling on port engine only for hours with full electronics suite activated (serviced by starboard engine bank). Both fridges running all that time, too...

On a previous boat, fewer batteries, I had to start the genset a couple times in order to get the main batteries up to where the parallel switch would work... That was mostly "small batteries, fridge" related...

-Chris

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by Scott Berg

I have a LI jump starter that will start our engine; never needed it...

+1 Also never needed it to start the engine.

We have other back ups and could wait for solar or hydro to boost the batteries while sailing.

We do carry an extra starter solenoid as these seem to have more failures than the mechanical portion of the starter.
Bill O.

[Jammer]

Thanks for the replies.

Originally Posted by lockie

I recall seeing a YouTube post years ago where a bloke used a line from the main boom run through blocks to the engine, where it was wrapped around the crankshaft pulley.
Then...…….gybe-o, followed by vroom vroom!

I never would have thought of that one.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Do you have a means of starting your propulsion engine in the event that all battery power is lost? Did you arrive at this redundancy deliberately or as a side effect of other goals?


How often have you had to use this capability?


Do you carry an extra starting motor and the tools necessary to install it?

My house batteries feed into my start circuit, but the start battery doesn't feed into the house. Normally I leave the start battery isolated as it has it's own little tickle solar charger. So I always have a charged start battery.

If all were dead I would need to wait for solar to charge a bank back up.

never have had a dead starting battery issue.

I have a spare starter and it can be swapped out in 10 minutes. I have an "after market" $100 starter than CF said wouldn't last, 7 years ago now.