here made light of my statement about changing the starter from one running engine to the other non-running engine on that catamaran that was abandoned list week. Sorry this is late but I was out at Anza Borrego doing some 4-wheeling for the last few days. Anyway, my question to you is which would you rather do in a rough sea with the boat bouncing around. Change parts/repair a rudder which is crashing stop to stop with the quadrant flying back and forth. Broken cables, auto pilot arms and rudder feedback linkage flopping around threating to pinch, smash or crush any hand that might inadvertently get in the way or, change a starter which is on the other end of the engine away from anything that's moving? Personally, I'll take the starter in a heartbeat. And yes, I have changed parts on a running engine. Not a starter but an alternator with a frozen bearing. Suffice it to say that we weren't in a position to shut the engine down for more then a few minutes. I changed the alternator, wired it up and shut the engine down just long enough to put on the new belt and tighten it up. OBTHW, it was rough, in the middle of the night and I was working on a raw water cooled Volvo engine. I just thought I would toss this out and see what happens.