Help Your Genset Live Forever

Most gensets live lives of quiet desperation, shunted into a far corner of the engine room or, even worse, stuffed under the cockpit sole, where they’re ignored until the power goes out. Life is often short for a genny treated like this. But you can save your genset from this ignominious extinction, while keeping it happy and healthy, with just a bit of effort. While you can’t really render your generator immortal, despite the title of this column—“forever,” as used here, means until you sell your boat—if you give it the attention it deserves, your genset will most likely reward you with thousands of 120-volt-filled hours.

Because the genset is relatively small and not nearly as impressive as the vessel’s main engines, and it’s usually mounted someplace inconvenient, boat owners frequently fail to provide the maintenance it requires. Don’t be one of those people. A genset is more complex than a propulsion engine, even though the latter may have many times the horsepower. Comprised of an internal combustion engine (ICE) driving