In terms of powerboating we do live a privileged life at PBN where we visit and see more high performance facilities than anyone else in the country. Because of this privilege our favorite is the unannounced drop by where you get to see behind the scenes with whats really going on in the industry as it is happening.
Recently we invited ourselves into the Supercat Rigging facility also know as AMF Offshore the Geico racing teams headquarters the other day and were stopped in our tracks as we saw a few (yes more than two) turbine engines being prepped for installations in some boats.
There is something about looking at an aircraft engine that just makes you get all excited about going fast in a performance boat.
I know its not your typical big block GM based engine but its an engine that survives by taming the oil temperature for survival just like your boat.
I have been fortunate enough to run a big 50 Mystic with 1850 Turbines and I do know if you haven’t been around or seen the workings of a turbine powered catamaran, much of it is foreign and the systems to support the turbine and not familiar. I don’t even have a real depth on much of how it works but we are able to recognize most things unfamiliar. Looking closely at the turbine on the stand we noticed something very familiar and were struck with “Why is that there?” It was a Hardin Marine 15 plate oil cooler mounted atop this engine?
Come to find out from the legend Gary Stray, famous for keeping the Geico team in the winners circle and for building some of the worlds most custom catamarans, that these engines have severe oil cooling requirements just like an offshore powerboat Gary said in an effort to reduce the packaging size of the engine and maintain efficient cooling, he turned to a Hardin Marine product for an option. After testing the Hardin 15 plate oil cooler they found out that not only were they able to reduce the oil temperature by an additional 20 degrees over the OEM Lycoming cooler but they reduced the cost of the aircraft style replacement oil coolers that sell new for a whopping $11,000.
So whether your trying to cool the oil of an 1800HP Turbine Engine or virtually any powerboat engine the products to do it can be found from our PBN loyal supporters at Hardin Marine. The Hardin oil cooler has proven to work better that the uber expensive aircraft part and is fully endorsed by the Turbine Engine Experts at PPS.
