The only thing that each of the three air cooled Deutz diesel engines will turn will therefore be hydraulic pumps. Any one or any combination of these three engines can therefore run everything. When power requirements are low, one or two of the engines can be shut down to conserve on fuel. Two engines can fail completely, and the boat can still return to port under its own power. Since the engines will be turning variable displacement pumps, I will therefore have the equivalent of a variable speed transmission.
Gear ratios are infinitely variable from full speed reverse to full speed forward.
This is the reason for turning the propellers with fluid power. The exhaust will be dry stacked through a muffler. I will therefore be able to use a standard diesel engine with no marine conversions. This keeps costs down to a minimum, both the cost to buy the engines in the first place, and also the cost to maintain them over the years. The way engines are normally mounted into boats, air cooling simply does not work.