Sunday, February 19, 2012

YOUR BOAT MOTOR POWERED BY PROPANE

One of the new products making its debut  at the Miami International Boat Show is neither large nor splashy, but it could turn out to be a game-changer in the marine outboard engine industry.
Lehr Inc. — a Southern California company known primarily as a maker of environmentally friendly lawn care equipment — introduces the world’s first production propane-powered outboards in 2.5- and 5-horsepower models. (click below to read more)


Priced at about $1,000 for the 2.5-horsepower model and $1,600 for the 5-horsepower, the new Lehr engines are touted as greener, cheaper and easier to maintain than their four-stroke, gasoline-powered cousins.
“Propane is domestically produced. It’s cheaper. It’s not a marine pollutant. It can’t get into the water. It produces a small amount of hydrocarbon compared to gasoline. It doesn’t deplete the ozone,” Lehr founder captain Bernardo Herzer said. “They [the engines] run on less fuel. They will last longer. You won’t need to replace them as often.”
And unlike ethanol, Herzer said, propane won’t wreak havoc on marine fuel lines and other components.
Herzer said a pound of propane burns at about the same rate as a gallon of gasoline but can be bought as cheaply as $2 per pound — compared to $3.50 and up for a gallon of regular gasoline. A propane canister can be secured in the engine cowling or it can be dispensed from a larger tank through a hose just like a propane-fueled barbecue grill. Many of the engine components are the same as regular carbureted outboards, but the Lehr has a patented fuel system technology.
A couple of weeks before the boat show, Louis Diaz of Donovan Marine in Miami — a distributor of the Lehr outboard — along with Glenn Gillette, president of Lifeline Inflatables in North Miami, took the 5-horsepower model out for a test run in Biscayne Bay. Their test boat was a nine-foot AB rigid inflatable.
But before they could depart, Diaz had to purchase a container of Coleman propane fuel from Crook & Crook because the Lehr refillable canister was missing from the factory shipment. Diaz simply screwed it into the fitting in the cowling, and Gillette pulled the starter cord.
The first couple tries, the engine coughed, but on the fourth try, it turned over — emitting a faint scent of propane and sounding very much like a lawn mower.
Gillette got it up to about 7 knots at top throttle, and it was noisier than a comparable four-stroke outboard. But it never sputtered, and he said it had the same feel as a normal engine that size.
Run times range from 30 minutes to more than three hours, depending on speed, weight and ocean conditions.
If the smaller models catch on for yacht tenders and sailboat dinghies, Lehr is expected to roll out larger models in 9.9- and 20-horsepower later this year.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/16/2643577/new-outboard-engine-running-on.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy
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