Engine Rooms - Space for Scotty et al

[SeanRW]

I've been looking recently at boats and am in the middle of making a decision but I have one nagging question about design.

When it comes to boat design, given the allowable space aboard, would you opt for or against a dedicated engine room ? By this I mean having the engine below the companionway with access behind stairs and behind panels OR would you prefer a dedicated machine space that's enclosed with the engine and maybe even room for some other mechanical doodads.

My thinking is something along the following lines

Engine Rooms PROS
- Lots of sound insulation
- Dedicated fire supression system(s)
- Contains fumes, dirt, mess
- Machinery / thru-hulls consolidated in one space (weight central & low)
- Maybe space for tools / spares as well ?

Engine Rooms CONS
- HOT
- Consumes valuable space
- May restrict access to all 4 sides if it's packed with other equipment

I'm looking for some feedback or input. I'd like to hear what you have and why it's working (or not) for you.

[Faster]

I think that below 45 - 50 feet an "engine room" is difficult to justify from a space utilization point of view... Some voluminous center cockpit designs do pull it off, though.

If you're looking at a boat under that size then I think that in this area, of prime importance is the amount of access that's provided to the engine. In our case it's in a box under the companionway and we have 100% access on 3 sides, with arm's reach on the fourth. All in all it's a workable arrangement, though it's tight for any significant soundproofing measures.

[Stillraining]

Ya! ..even though I know its a Hollywood set and not the real thing ..I love the engine room in Captian Ron's Movie..

And though we have by a lot of peoples standards a condo on the water... our engine room is still tight with both main engine and gen set in there and not a whole lot of fun to work on any hard to reach things.

[brettw]

Does anyone have a list of boats (less than, say 60') with separate engine rooms? Sundeer, Deerfoot, mac65? are two that I know about

[Omatako]

Originally Posted by Faster

I think that below 45 - 50 feet an "engine room" is difficult to justify from a space utilization point of view... Some voluminous center cockpit designs do pull it off, though.

Our Morgan 44 has a sizeable engine room directly under the cockpit which houses all things mechanical/electrical. At the moment main engine (obviously ), small diesel tank, hot water cylinder, inverter, big-frame alt, house battery bank, starter battery bank, mains charger and fridge unit.

In another 12 months it will contain, in addition to the above, a gen set, dive compressor and water maker and double the house bank we presently have. And it will still have enough room to get to most stuff without significant difficulty.

And the engine room doesn't really take up any usable space because the space below the cockpit with the layout of the living space can hardly be used for anything else.

[SailorNate]

My KP44 has more of an engine closet. Plenty of room to get around the aux and check things out, it can be a bit challenging if you need to do something underway, and borderline dangerous if the aux is running.

Nate