Because the man knows that diesel/heavy fuel oil is safer.
That was my only point.
The lack of regs for pleasure boaters absolutely blows my mind. I have stacks of rules and regs that look like phonebooks that I have to deal with. It’s only a matter of time before the government rains hell on the pleasure boating industry. Accidents like this and collisions are on an upward trend.
Dude, I’ve been on boats my entire life (In BUSY waters). I have seen and heard of only a few fires in my lifetime. Most of those fires I’ve heard about happened while on dry-dock.
It’s rare, and really NOT an issue. Also, it doesn’t really put anyone in a huge amount of danger. If your boat is on fire, jump out of it!
Which would change in an instant if gasoline suddenly became cheaper per mile/ton than diesel. You really underestimate the power of money and cost savings. Some big business (walmart probably) would find a way to get the regs changed so they could save X billion on shipping their stuff from China. Or even without changing the regs someone would spend the money to find a way to make a gas powered commercial ship pass the inspection. Once one shipper was doing it and undercutting their diesel competitors it would be the end of diesel. Like I said early, cost > *. If you gives you a warm fuzzy feeling about your industry thinking they’d keep using safer diesel even if gas cost less fine, but you obviously have a lot more faith in big business’s value of people over money than I do.
Hell, look at the airline industry. They filled planes up for years with a fuel that almost guaranteed that any belly landing resulted in a giant fireball and instant incineration for all on board. Eventually they found a cost effective way to make the fuel less volitile.
PS… If these shipping companies are so ethical and safety concious, why are so few ships registered as US or Canadian and so many as Liberian (and various other countries with less stringent regulations)?
EDIT: The company Southtowns worked for for a little while (CSL) was big on reflagging ships in the 90’s.
Sea Men
Are people required to have boat insurance?
I never worked for them. I worked for and still work for American companies that have never reflagged a ship foreign.
Get your facts straight.
I wasn’t referring specifically to fires…sorry. I meant the whole industry in general.
The general lack of knowledge as a whole on the part of pleasure boaters needs to be addressed. I really feel that the government will step in at some point. That’s all I was saying.
Nope. Maybe if it’s owned by the bank they are, but I don’t know about that.
Gasoline has been cheaper than diesel for the last 2 years. Nothing changed.
Sorry, could have sworn you were on one of CSL’s lakers a while back.
Per gallon sure. Per mile/ton when accounting for diesel engine life and perfect low end torque for the application… no way. Get your facts straight.
You can build a gasoline engine that will have the longevity and durability of a diesel and make the same “low end torque”.
BTW, on ships, the engine runs at very near 100% full speed so technically you need high end torque. Also, prop load increases near to a square of the speed. So that said, you really need very little low end torque, but rather high end torque.
But you can’t make it nearly as efficient.
Yeah, but 100% is what, 2000 RPM? 2500? 3000 MAYBE? That’s still “low end torque” to me.
Exactly. And that was my point all along. It costs less to move a ton of freight via ship with diesel than gasoline. If there was some gas engine breakthrough tomorrow that suddenly made it cheaper to use gas the diesel would be dead in no time. Yeah, diesel’s safety is a nice bonus but saying safety is the main reason it’s the shipping standard is naive.
You could get close, but never match it largely because diesel has a higher BTU content. Most internal combustion engines have efficiencies near 20-25%.
What you could do, is use a gasoline fired boiler to run a steam turbine. This method approaches 60% efficiency. Yeah, gasoline has a slightly lower BTU content, but that’s a huge increase in efficiency over a diesel internal combustion engine. Coupled with a lower fuel cost you’d be on to something. Except that the USCG makes it impossible to use gasoline as a fuel. There are actually lots of diesel fired steam turbine ships out there. They’re intrinsically more complicated than just an engine, but the efficiency savings make up for the headaches.
Try under 500 RPM. Some slower than 80 RPM.
.
Well shit, if that’s not low-end torque.
No way dude, not when you’re running 80 RPM and you’re near 100%. That’s high end honda torque right there.
Anyway, I’m done. I never meant for this to go so far off topic. I just got a little offended at the suggestion that all us gas boaters are a bunch of crazies riding around on ticking bombs with no thought of our passenger’s safety. Saying diesel was a commercial decision just for safety pushed me into combat mode. 
It’s all relative. With an engine that turns 500 RPM at full speed, if it made peak tq at 100 RPM that would be a lot of low end torque. If the tq peaked at 450 RPM that’s a lot of high end torque.
yep, JayS is right. There are multiple reasons why diesel/gas is used in each application.
oh and Southrowns27. I read what you said on page 2 about needing more regulations on boating in general…I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen some really dumb people behind the wheels of boats and jet skiis.