THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607270188
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 87 lines
Dawn today will likely find Larry Graf cruising the Atlantic coast at about 20 knots in a small boat powered by twin 90-horsepower outboards.
If that sounds impossible, just wait until early next week when Graf runs from New York to Bermuda at top speed on a single tank of gas.
Powered by four-cycle outboards provided by Todd Marine Enterprises of Virginia Beach, the 26-foot Glacier Bay catamaran, which Graf helped design, will attempt to set a world record for distance, speed and fuel efficiency.
``No one's ever done this at speed with a trailerable sport fishing boat,'' said Todd Schaumbach, president of Todd Marine.
Furthermore, the ride will be relatively quiet because the four-cycle engines run at much lower revolutions per minute.
This should be music to the ears of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is expected to issue new rules this week aimed at cutting pollution on recreational watercraft.
Key to the new rules likely will be either four-cycle or newly designed fuel-injected two-cycle engines.
Todd Marine, which also has a boat-building facility in Norfolk and a sales office in Point Harbor, N.C., sells nothing but four-cycle Honda outboards. The cost is higher than traditional two-cycle engines, but fuel savings and extra power more than make up for the higher price tag, Schaumbach said.
Other dealers in South Hampton Roads sell four-cycle motors, but the added price has made buyers wary. ``They're catching on, but they're not setting the world on fire,'' said Mark Tiller, salesman for Norfolk Marine Co., which sells four-cycle Yamaha outboards.
This likely will change as the new rules, supported by the boating industry, begin taking effect. They'll be phased in over 10 years.
Todd Marine and Glacier Bay, a Seattle, Wash., boat builder, are trying to get a few steps ahead.
Schaumbach, who sells the multihull, Honda-powered boats to commercial fishermen, said his clients report much better gas mileage than traditional boats. ``Sixty-six percent is what our commercial guys are saying,'' he said.
Four-cycle engines have been around for more than 100 years. They work by drawing fuel into a chamber on the first stroke, compressing it on the second, exploding it on the third and exhausting it on the fourth.
Two-cycle engines, used for outboards, chain saws, weed cutters and other vehicles and tools, combine the compression and exhaust strokes, forcing unburned hydrocarbons into the air and water. They're known to be noisier and smellier than their four-cycle counterparts.
Boaters who are more concerned about the environment than saving up-front engine costs long have sought four-cycle motors, but they aren't yet in wide use.
``The four-cycle technology is what makes the most sense and what should be out there,'' Schaumbach said.
Graf, designer and partner for Glacier Bay, planned to leave the Todd Marine dock near Shore Drive Friday night and sail to Island Park in Long Island, N.Y. After a news conference Monday, he'll leave for Bermuda and return to Virginia Beach late this week.
The New York-Bermuda leg is 780 miles and should take 35 to 40 hours. Graf expects to burn about 350 of the 420 gallons of gasoline the boat will hold. That's better than 2 miles per gallon - double the mileage of most outboards.
And it's being done with 90-horsepower engines instead of the twin-200s and extra fuel tanks that most boats would need.
Partly, it's the hull shape, Graf said. Whereas V-shape hulls push water out of the way, the knife-edge multihulls cut through it.
``The V-bottom boat has to come out of the water and fly on the surface. It uses a significant part of its energy lifting the boat onto the surface,'' he said. ``With the cat hulls, the energy you used to lift yourself is now used to push you down the bay.''
Commercial fishing boats have gone to higher and higher power and more fuel capacity, but they still can't cruise as far as Graf hopes to, at top speed.
``What he's proving essentially is you could fish Bermuda out of New York,'' Schaumbach said.
KEYWORDS: BOAT ENGINE EPA by CNB