Exhaust laws changing?

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A friend of mine on my space was telling me the Laws concerning through hull exhaust have changed. Has anyone else heard this??

The exahust rules have not changed yet but they will in January 2009. It will apply to new boats and basically what it amounts to is gasoline marine engines will have catalytic comverters. But that is not all that will happen. The EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) have put new exhaust and evaporative emissions regulations into place. Actually this started way back in 1999. I was the USCG liaison to the EPA on this issue. (I retired in 2004) So the materials used to make plastic fuel tanks, fuel hoses and any other fuel component that emit evaporative emissions, will change. Some of this is already in place. The new hose is already available on the market. The tank industry has been working on a new formulation for plastic tanks. And devices are being developed to trap gasoline vapors in the fuel tank vent, while allowing air to pass freely. We do not want pressurized fuel systems on boats!

But on the exhaust emissions side most of the work has been done. Engines are significantly more efficient and emit less NOX and HCOs than they used to. The catalytic converter will do the rest. But! The jury is still out on whether or not a catalytic converter will survive for any significant time on a marine engine. Water ingestion is a real problem as almost anyone who has owned an inboard knows. Water, especially salt water destroys a catalytic converter. The USCG, EPA, ABYC, NMMA and carb have had a joint project run by Southwest Research Laboratories to test Catalytic Converters in real life use, for five years. That test should wrap up this summer.

By the way when I say catalytic converter do not think automobile catalytic converter. The ones for boats are about the size of coke can, and fit inside the riser before the point where water is injected in a wet exhaust system. They are made by the same people that make the auto converters but they are very different in design. Who knows they may work. Yamaha started putting them on their Personal Water Craft in 2004. I have not heard of any significant problems with them on the PWCs. But a PWC is NOT an offshore powerboat with twin or triple 8.1L V-8's. It's a whole different ball game.