lubrication

This is my first post of this forum although I have read and enjoyed the informative posts for a couple of years now.<br /><br />I have a Macgregor 26X sailboat which has a 50 hp ourboard motor on it. Owners of this boat have started using 4 stroke outboards from Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha and hence the question, since this may be the first time such outboards (in this size) have been used to power sailboats which can and do operate heeled at 30 - 40 degree angles routinely:<br /><br />Are these new 4 stroke outboards designed to operate when leaned or heeled to the side at a 40 degree angle? In other words, with the oil pump still get oil from the reservoir when heeled?<br /><br />I have heard this concern raised regarding inboard diesels, but had not heard one way or the other on the 4 stroke outboards .<br /><br />Personally, I have a 2 stroke 1997 Tohatsu 50 hp, so I should be OK, but many of the owners (thousands) have 4 strokes on their Magregor sailboats.

Re: lubrication

Fastacker I gotta ask, why do you need a 50 hp motor on a 26 foot sailboat. Most of the inboard diesels I've used on sailboats 45 feet and up don't have engines that powerful. Also, you would not generally be using the engine with the boat heeled over would you? I mean if you have enough wind to heel it over you're sailing pretty good right? Anyway the oil pickup issue is a good question and I am curious about the answer. Its never been a problem with the inboard disels I've sailed with.

Re: lubrication

Sorry I posted this in 2 spots. I first posted on the Tohatsu area which is probably where my bookmark was set. Still learning about how the forum s organized I guess although this should have been obvious to me. <br /><br />The 50 hp is standard for this particular boat, which was a new concept dual purpose boat when it was introduced about 8 or 9 years ago. So it is kind of a new application for the 4 stroke motors in the larger sizes (50-115 hp) (yes, a few adventurous souls have put some pretty big motors on these things even though it invalidates the hull warrantee.) <br /><br />It's a pretty good shallow draft boat and spacious (for a 26 ft sailboat). That was my main reason for getting it, but the big motor - dual use was the main design concept. <br /><br />We have a pretty active forum just for this boat, but when it comes to a difficult motor question I usually come here to get my answers. Usually the answer is already here and easily found with the search feature, but this question seems new about whether 4 stroke outboards are happy running at 40 degrees of heel.