Lugger diesels?

[scot]

I was in Alaska last week on business and found a spare day in Valdez. Took a day cruise in Prince William Sound on a 57ft boat that was powered with twin Lugger diesels. Of course I had to spend a bunch of time quizzin (bothering) the Captain about the boat and the engines. I knew these were popular engines in the North West but had never been around any. The engines ran smooth, fairly quiet and very little smoke. had a nice sound as well. They are low rpm (2200-2400) diesels and had loads of torque. I liked'um.

Any of you guys have any experience with these engines? The Captain on the boat said they had re-powered the enire fleet with them and they love the engines. Also stated the fuel consumption was great. The 57ft modified Vee hull with the twins Luggers ran 18-20 knots and burns 24 gph total. Seems like really good numbers for a 57ft boat with 25 fat tourist on board.

[Rawleigh]

All I know is they have advertised in Boats & Harbors for the last 20 years or so. They seem like tough old school diesels.

[captbone]

Nothing but good things about the Lugger/Nothern Lights diesels. Just like John Deere diesels they are overbuilt and not worried so much about weight.

Some of the best engines on the market. Nordhaven uses them for long range trawlers.

[Bruce]

I saw a few of their propulsion engines, always in trawlers come thru my way.

Saw a bunch more as a NL gen dealer.

The engines themselves were good but like many other manufacturers both of propulsion and gen sets, some parts used for marinization were questionable quality.

But once learned which parts wouldn't last, I always recommend to a customer to keep a spare and at what time to change it before the part failed usually at a much higher cost to repair.

Nothing different than Yanmar, Cat, Cummins, etc or those green engines where keeping a spare engine was the best :-)

[scot]

It was a great trip. Whales, bears, otters, seals, big ass glaciers, etc, etc. I enjoyed listening to the diesels purring all day.

BUT the most interesting part was the 2 Chinese women puking on the aft deck. There was a Chinese man with them who kept bringing them cups to puke in. When the cups would fill up, he chunked them overboard and hand them a freah "unpuked in" cup. This drill went on for several hours.

I did learn something from my observations, puking sounds exactly the same in Chinese as it does in English, interesting.