I am in complete and total agreement with Mike on this issue, for a couple of reasons. While I don't have his widely varying experience on numerous vessels over 40 years, in 50,000+ miles on our own twin-engine, twin-screw vessel we never had a single serious engine failure on either of the venerable 6-71s. In my younger days I spent time crewing aboard aboard a single engine Dutch tug that never in its operating history of over 20 years had an engine problem that was debilitating. I've noticed that people in the business of building and promoting passagemakers make a big production of the "exploits" of people like Bruce Kessler who spent a lot of money on a sophisticated yacht and managed to get it around the world before sinking it on a rock that was in the wrong place in Alaska. Twenty years earlier people were out there quietly making long ocean power boat passages without acclaim. A majority of them were single boats. And, of course, there are the unsung experts of the power boat world, the fisherman who collectively see millions of miles in their wakes every year and they do it with single engine vessels and no secondary "get-home" capability. They operate reliable engines, they carry spare parts and they know how to make repairs. Not getting home is the least of their worries - their primary concern is the loss of their catch. People that are new to going to sea in passagemakers are obviously nervous about the experience and any prudent person wants to maximize their ability to deal with mechanical difficulties. Peace of mind is worth a lot. If you can afford it, by all means put in a get home mechanism of your choice. But don't do it because the marketing gurus have convinced you that it's a necessity; do it because you have researched the statistics and related data and believe it's the best choice for you and your skill set. And remember, the experience of passagemakers is an almost infinitesimaly small portion of the power vessels that have gone to sea in the past several decades. Bruce