I drove to Germany to pick up a diesel engine

I’ve worked with electrification since 2008.

My boat needs a new engine, and given my background, electric propulsion should be the obvious choice. I’ve built these systems. I know what they can do.

So I did what engineers do: I ran the numbers. Not for boats in general - for this boat.

I could build my own electric system. Technically, that’s the fun option. But a one-off system built by the owner raises questions around certification, documentation, insurance, surveys - and eventually every conversation with a future buyer.

I could buy a certified electric system. Cleaner. But when I added up this particular installation - the age and value of the boat, the cost of the conversion, and the fact that I may want to sell her one day - the numbers were clear.

A used, proven diesel.

Because I wasn’t really choosing between electric and diesel. I was choosing the best solution within a much larger system - one that includes the boat’s age, the next owner, the insurance company, the surveyor, the mechanic in a small harbour, and my own plans.

That’s the part of engineering nobody puts on a slide: the right answer depends on where you draw the system boundary. Draw it around the motor, and one answer looks obvious. Draw it around the boat’s whole life, and the answer can flip.

The engineer in me loves the elegant solution. The systems thinker has learned to ask: elegant for whom, and for how long?

This week, she started for the first time.

Since 2008, I’ve helped physical products become digital. My own boat just went the other way. Simpler, more analogue. The systems thinker knows it’s the right call. The engineer misses the data already.