Is a Horse a Horse?

To answer this question, you need to understand the basics of defining horsepower.
Dudley Dawson
Published: Maro, 2009

It all started with James Watt and his efforts to market an improved steam engine in the 18th
century. Cornish miners used horse-driven pumps to dewater their mines, so it became necessary for
the Scottish entrepreneur to develop an equivalent value to know how many horses his engine could
replace. Watt's experiment showed that one horse, on average, could lift 330 pounds of water one
hundred feet in one minute, or the equivalent of 33,000 foot-pounds/minute.
Watt coined the term "horsepower" to designate this value, and thus established the standard
English and U.S., or SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) horsepower. Energy is also measured
in watts these days, named in honor of James, with the SAE system setting 1 horsepower as
equivalent to 745.7 watts, or 0.7457 kilowatts (kW), a kilowatt being 1,000 watts.
To keep things nice and even in their own system, and to confuse the rest of us, developers of the
metric system set one horsepower equal to 4,500 kilogram-meters/minute, which is 32,549 footpounds/minute, or 735.5 watts, or 98.6 percent of an SAE horsepower. Further confusion was added
by sometimes designating metric horsepower as MHP, sometimes as PS (pferdestarke, or "horse
strength" in German), and sometimes as CV (cavallo, or "horse" in Italian), depending on where the
engine was manufactured.
For marine engines, whether inboard or outboard, gasoline or diesel, a horse is a horse. It's a myth
that a hundredhorse diesel is more powerful than a hundred-horse gas engine. The confusion may
stem from the difference between continuous and maximum power ratingsdiesels can sometimes
run continuously at a higher percentage of their maximum power than gas enginesor from the
difference in torquea slower-turning diesel will have more torque than a faster-revving gas engine
of the same horsepower.
Horsepower ratings for marine engines are also complicated by where the power is measured during
certification testing. Brake horsepower (BHP) is the power measured at the engine flywheel, using a
dynamometer, or test brake. It's also known as SAE net horsepower. Shaft horsepower (SHP) is
measured at the propeller shaft coupling flange, at the aft end of the reduction gear. It's usually
about 3 percent less than the BHP, due to frictional losses within the gear.
From model tests or from calculations, boat designers and builders can estimate how much
horsepower is needed to propel a boat of a given weight at a given speed. In pure theoretical terms,
this is the effective horsepower (EHP). Now, because not all of the horsepower that is sent down the
shaft is effectively transferred into propelling the boat, we have to figure in a factor known as the
overall propulsive coefficient (OPC), which takes into account the efficiency of the propeller and a
few other smaller effects. For many stock propellers, the OPC is about 50 percent, meaning that half
your power, and half your fuel and money, are lost in the transition. Improved, modern, custom
propellers, often high-pitch, coupled to high-ratio (deep reduction) gears, can deliver OPCs of 60
percent to 70 percent. If you've ever wondered why anyone would buy a $5,000 custom prop when
a $2,000 stock one will do, the answer lies in that potential 20-percent to 40-percent improvement
in fuel efficiency and range.
Let's look at an example, starting with a new yacht that needs 1,000 effective horsepower (EHP) to
propel it at 30 knots. With modern props and a moderately deep gear ratio, let's estimate you'll get
about a 60 percent OPC, so the shaft horsepower required is 1,000 divided by 0.60, or 1,667 shaft
horsepower (SHP). Brake horsepower required is 1,667 divided by 0.97, or 1,718 BHP, to make up

for that 3 percent loss in the reduction gear. For a twin-engine installation, you'd need two engines
of 859 brake horsepower (BHP) each. Non-U.S. engines rated in metric horsepower would need to
be 859 divided by 0.986, or 871 metric horsepower (MHP). In either case, the brake horsepower
required is equal to about 640,000 watts, or 640 kilowatts (kW) per engine.
To compare apples to apples, use the U.S./SAE shaft horsepower (SHP). If the brake horsepower
rating is published instead, subtract about 3 percent to get shaft horsepower. If the metric shaft
horsepower is published, subtract about 1.4 percent, and if it's metric brake horsepower, the
reduction is cumulative, so subtract 3 percent + 1.4 percent, or 4.4 percent total to get to US/SAE
shaft horsepower. If the rating is published in kilowatts rather than horsepower, divide the rating by
0.746 (or multiply by 1.34) to get US/SAE horsepower, and if it's brake kilowatts instead of shaft,
don't forget to then subtract the additional 3 percent to get shaft horsepower.

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