The Cummins QSB 380 

I first came across Cummins not in a Fairey boat but in my Nelson 40, Not the engines we have today, these were heavy noisy Cummins V8 555’s which were replaced with far more sociable Perkins Sabre 225’s.

My experience with the Cummins B Series was in a friend’s Fairey Spearfish. My Fairey Huntsman 28 ‘Santa Maria’ was in need of new engines and I was faced with a dilemma facing owners of the older Fairey Huntsman which were originally fitted with Ford Parsons engines of only just over 100 Hp.

The shallow shaft angle was efficient however the propeller aperture limits the propeller diameter to around 16 inches therefore a shaft speed of 2500rpm offered by Ford or Perkins engines would men ridiculously over square propellers. With further research the Cummins B looked better and better. It could rev to 3000 rpm, was lighter and incredibly robust. All the Fairey boats fitted with Cummins engines had a reputation of being fast with the added bonus of very little smoke.

However there was an obstacle, Cummins marine engines are more expensive and far harder to find second hand. Luckily technical help was at hand though members of the Fairey Owners Club and I set out to marinise my own engines. Thinking back all this would have been impossible without luck and a huge amount of technical assistance from guys at Cummins. My visits to Cummins Diesel Heathrow were so frequent that I was requested to call the workshop foreman Dave ‘Hairy’ Harvey half an hour before my take off in Concorde in order that he could muster his staff outside in order to give me a wave as I went over!

With her new engines ‘Santa’ went like the wind, another Fairey Huntsman owner described her performance as rude. It was at this point I learned an important lesson. High power in old Fairey boats is bad for their health; Santa met a big sea at high speed and suffered serious damage resulting in her becoming a constructive total loss.

The search was now on for a new home for potent engines, this time a strong G.R.P Fairey Spearfish.  Originally developing around 270 Hp with jacket water after-coolers the engines were fitted with new raw water charge air coolers and more tweaks to the fuel pump giving close to 300 Hp.

The heavier Spearfish and a move to the South of France and higher ambient temperatures meant that Miss Daisy was no faster than Santa Maria and the 40 knot Fairy still eluded me.  Following a period of planning I placed an order for the latest electronic  Cummins Mercruiser  QSB 380 engines and a pair of  Z.F. 220A gearboxes.  In the 1970's the typical six litre  200 Hp diesel engine was a beast of an engine, Alan Burnard was careful to place his shafts close to the centre line. Fitting modern engines with a very square foot print is far from easy. Swordsman Marine have addressed this design issue in their new boats as part of generally updating the original Fairey design. However the new motors in an old Fairey are a tight fit!

Not an inch wasted!

To date we have done all our testing and propeller tuning in the Mediterranean, back in the UK the  lower ambient temperatures  should certainly give us a boost. The record set by the Fairey Huntsman 28 909 on Lake Windermere of 44.5 Knots may be in our sights. However with a huge difference. Back in 1973 the maxed out race engines could not be considered sociable, emitting huge clouds of smoke, and I am also told that 909 was so over propped that she needed towing on to the plane.   Such is the pace of progress that Miss Daisy, starts and runs without a whisper of smoke and delivers huge performance with no vices, together with the handling bonus of contra rotating propellers!

Click here to learn more about the Cummins QSB