Yanmar Diesels Keep Their Cool for Water Taxi Fleet
Melbourne’s unique water taxi service relies on Yanmar marine diesels to power their fleet of limousine-style cruising vessels. From wedding functions to corporate events, the Melbourne Water Taxi fleet provides a first class chauffer service throughout Melbourne’s rivers.
The unique selling feature of the Melbourne Water Taxi service is the opportunity to cruise the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers in comfort with a stunning city skyline as a backdrop. While the scenery might be spectacular, the operating conditions throughout these busy metropolitan river systems means only the toughest marine diesel engines will last.
“The best part for us about owning Yanmar engines is that they always keep their cool,” said Melbourne Water Taxi Director, Andrew Bird.
“It didn’t take much for our old diesel engines to overheat if their water intake became even partly blocked. With our Yanmar diesels, we have found all sorts of debris from chip packets to leaves partly blocking the intake and yet the engines have remained cool and stable.”
Yanmar pride themselves on building marine engines that have been designed specifically to withstand the riggers of marine work. When it came time for Andrew to upgrade his fleet of engines, this important feature of the Yanmar pedigree was hard to overlook.
“Our old diesels were just truck engines converted to marine use which simply struggled to perform,” said Andrew.
“Since switching to Yanmar we have noticed not only a big difference in our fuel costs but our clients have also commented on the low noise and low exhaust emissions that the Yanmar brand is renowned for. The high capacity cooling system design also means we have far less engine overheating concerns from debris in the water. Other than scheduled maintenance we have not experienced any down-time since repowering with Yanmar.”
“Our Yanmar diesel engines and gearboxes also get a serious workout during the Australian Open tennis tournament. We worked out that each boat will do approximately 200 gear changes per day, over an extremely busy 10 days of ferrying people up and down the Yarra. During this high volume period my Yanmar engines have never let me down.”
The Melbourne Water Taxi fleet consists of five vessels ranging from their smallest Whaler capable of carrying 12 passengers, through to their charming wooden vessel ‘Rebecca’ which can accommodate up to 20 passengers. Each vessel is powered by a mixture of the Yanmar 4JH2E (51hp@3600rpm) and 4JH3 (56hp@3800rpm) series naturally aspirated diesel engines. The last vessel to be repowered was fitted with the new generation 3JH4E (39hp @3000rpm) engine model which already is receiving much praise for its strong performance and low noise.
Business begins to accelerate for Melbourne’s only water taxi service around Melbourne Cup Time in November and reaches its peak around the Christmas holiday break and the New Year. The Australian Open tennis tournament also brings the stars out on the Yarra with the last two Women’s champion players Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova both using ‘Rebecca’ to parade their trophies to nearby onlookers and the international media.
Regular maintenance has been a key program for the Melbourne Water Taxi fleet with each Yanmar diesel engine receiving new oil and filters every 200 hours. Engine installations and periodic service requirements have been carried out by the local Yanmar authorised sales and service dealer Mariner Engineering in Williamstown.
Power Equipment is the exclusive and authorised Australian and PNG distributor of Yanmar Marine and Industrial diesel engines importing product from Yanmar plants in Japan, Asia, USA and Europe. Power Equipment also distribute the Yanmar powered MASE diesel generators and Gori high quality folding sailboat propellers.
For further information on this story contact:
Michael Blair
National Marine Sales Manager
Power Equipment Pty Ltd
Tel (03) 9709 8500
Fax (03) 9709 8544
Email michael.blair@yanmar.com.au
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