Single Vs Twin and Safety
 

My current boat is a slow Formula. Back in the 1990's i had a 110 mph twin outboard 22' Talon. I am considering getting back into a hot rod in the future. I have been researching all the options out there and the recent tragedy with the single engine 26' Redline has me thinking. As speeds increase does the single become less and less safe when compared to a twin? I'm looking for expert opinions and I haven't seen this subject discussed.

Here are my thoughts. With a single you are fighting crabbing and torque steer and set up is very important. As speed increases this balance becomes more and more critical and when things go wrong they can happen in a hurry. A counter rotating twin will be much more forgiving and naturally keeps you going in a straight line. In fact, when counter rotating out if the boat leans hard port or starboard, the prop on the leaning side is in the water fighting to level the boat back up.

Twins on smaller boats tend to be outboards. When considering a hot rod, I really want to stay with stern drives but twins usually means a boat bigger than I need. It would be nice to begin seeing some tunnels in the 26'-28' range with twin LS small block packages. I believe it would be a much safer package compared to a single when running the same extreme speeds.

Curious, what happens if one motor locks up ?

I had a prop shaft break on the port engine when accelerating at 90+mph on my Talon. It turned to the left but was easily straightened out. Don't know about a locked up engine.

Had both twin engine stable&safe slowing down and taking offMy 02!!

I think that's what happened to Steve Coulombe, one motor locked up. To me speed is always a gamble, the perfect hull design changes as speed increases, who knows if and when something brakes.

We had a twin outboard on a 24' tunnel on the river that was running 80ish stbd motor quit and he was in the trees before he could react, no serious injuries fortunately.

Also extra engine gets you home!

I guess mechanical failure on one engine when running twins increases the risk somewhat. What I'm thinking about is at full speed and things get out of shape. It seems to me a twin engine boat would be more forgiving (same basic hull and speeds). With the maximum horsepower of a single engine getting higher than ever these single engine boats are running faster every year.

depending on how far into the trees you are!! but yeah, a twin with one broken engine is slow and doesn't steer well. a single with one broken engine is a lot slower and doesn't steer at all. but it uses less fuel...

It's probably true that there is a difference between single and twins, but when you're going 100+ mph in a small boat, anything can happen. That's a lot of speed for a small hull!