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Craiglaforce insitgated this posting.
It just so happens that many a time you will find yourself motorsailing.
Even with one sail up heeling angles can be excessive. How far can you heel without worrying about oil lubrication of your valuable outboard motor? No problem with 2-strokes. But, in theory, 4-strokes could run dry and burn the engine. Anyone have something to say?

I've heard the concern mentioned on larger boats with inboard diesels. I assumed similar problems might happen with an outboard, but am not sure.

All marine engines have specs defining max allowable working angles of inclination; both fore and aft, port and starboard.
I've never seen anything like this on specs for outboards. Maybe because they are used primarily for speedboats that don't list much. If we dig into the finer print of the manuals, we may be able to find something.
Anyone else know something?

FWIW, I ran mine once at idle for hours while sailing just to recharge the batteries. I don't remember the exact amount of heel (it was dark), but the main was reefed and I had to keep my feet against the leeward seat. With the new technology and sensors, I felt if the engine was starved for oil it would let me know with the alarm and then would shut down by itself. Most new stuff is built for idiots.

Octaman wrote: . . . re: Motorsailing ... Even with one sail up heeling angles can be excessive. How far can you heel without worrying about oil lubrication of your valuable outboard motor?

This has never been an issue for me. In my experience, if the wind is heavy enough to heel my boat, at all, I would not be motoring. Conversely, when I am motorsailing, wind isn't nearly strong enough to cause more than a very minor heel angle.

If the occasion occurred to motorsail in higher winds, I guess I'd try to sheet (or reef) the sails to avoid excessive heel. Basically though, if there's enough wind to heel more than 15 degrees, I want the motor off, and up.

I agree that most of the time when the wind is up the motor is off.

The one exception that I can think of is when you are in very high winds, reefed down pretty hard and might miss a tack near a hazard. In that case I keep the motor idling to make sure I can complete a missed tack. I was in this situtation once or twice where I was experimenting with how much wind the boat could handle. The sail plan was not balanced and lots of rudder was needed to go in a straight line. I was missing about 60% of the tack attempts. and I was running out of bay. Started the motor and used it to tack a couple times until I got back to the slip. Not sure what the wind speed was but I was the only boat on the bay that day. And someone kept radioing "to the white sailboat on the bay, do you need asistance?" Finally I figured out they meant me and replied that I was fine.

I would hope the 4 stroke outboard makers put some method in place to keep the oil pump happy at high heel angles. All it would take is a weighted hose or something that finds the bottom of the oil reservoir. But I don't know. Since putting a 50 hp outboard motor is new ground, they may not have considered this in the design. Certainly worth checking on.

I just posted this question on Iboats.com under the Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda motor forum areas to see if they have the answer. There are some pretty sharp motor gurus over there. I'll let you know if I get an answer.

The one exception that I can think of is when you are in very high winds, reefed down pretty hard and might miss a tack near a hazard.

Talking about hazards...I have to sail under a lot of bridges (4 of them to get out into the Gulf) and I make it a habit to always run the motor when going under a bridge. Sometimes I will try to sail them because its good practice, but at the very minimum, I keep the motor down and idling just in case. Strong currents and wind eddys are pretty common under these bridges and it would only take a couple seconds for something to go wrong and to smash into a piling. Happened to me once on a windsurfer about 20 years ago. The board and I made it out ok, but the sail got very badly scraped up being dragged against an oyster laden piling with strong currents.

craiglaforce wrote: ... in very high winds, reefed down pretty hard and might miss a tack near a hazard. In that case I keep the motor idling to make sure I can complete a missed tack.
... I would hope the 4 stroke outboard makers put some method in place to keep the oil pump happy at high heel angles.
... a 50 hp outboard motor is new ground, they may not have considered this in the design. Certainly worth checking on.

Your points are well taken ... I'll look forward to hearing more. Even absent "heel," since all coastal motorboats are subject to significant ocean swell, let's hope that "lean angles" are one of the designed-for operating variables.

Taken from different thread re Honda 50 problems:

sailpsych wrote:Also, oil pressure light does not come on. However, dealer mentioned motor will shut off if oil pressure is not sufficient so have not been sweating that one. ...
"ParadoX" Channel Islands Harbor, CA

Maybe the iboats website will have more info regarding oil pressure safety. However, I can imagine it would be very disconcerting to have a safety feature kill the motor when one's being pushed onto rocks, beach, or another vessel!

I have the 8 Hp motor on sometimes when I am heading into the wind and time is running out. I sail up river, down wind and when I turn around its ...tack...tack...tack... and by that time the wind is gusting from 0 to 30 (?) down the canyon...family screams from down below....... I heal so far my son asks me not to put up the jib or its my problem... wimp! scares me too! Wimp DAD...

Rob H.

Just to follow up,

Not much response from the iboats forum. This might be too unusual a question and probably would need to be asked of the motor vendors to get a meaningful answer. I guess I'm done chasing it, but would certainly encourage those with 4 strokes to check with their vendors. I would be interested to hear the answers.

I discussed the issue today with a local Suzuki engineer.
He tells me that the sump is designed to be narrow at the bottom end with an oil suction hose that goes all the way down the bottom.
Consequently, it is highly improbable that you will ever starve the engine of oil.
Unless you turn it up side down! - Not recommended
I hope this clears the issue.
It makes sense too - I have never heard of a 4-stroke outboard running dry.
Thank you all for your input
Octaman