The engine room contains two, Stewart and Stevenson diesel electric generators.
Sea Shadow was consdered by her crew to be a reliable ship. However, when not at sea there was a lot of maintenance, testing and preparation for the next mission. One crew member commented, "This was not a kick back job."
Once her fuel tanks were contaminated with water and both engines shut down. The crew was without power for 12 hours, but they declined a Navy tow as they worked to solve the problem themselves. Sea Shadow was not built to handle casualties (equipment failure) like a Navy combat ship. For example, she does not have an auxiliary generator so the ship was dark during the repairs. Battle lantern batteries fail pretty quickly, but they had lots of flashlights. They were able to drain the water from the tanks and bucket brigade it off the ship. The crew got one of the engines working and make it home without outside help.