Have you considered motorizing your port and starboard hulls? Keeping the diesel, maybe with a folding prop? If you hung removable rudders on the outer hulls with a gudgeon and pintle setup, you would have the advantages of twin screw maneuverability. Could be inboard electric, or those neat little pod motors. The Perkins like you say has low hours. You could mount two big alternators for charging the banks, one to either side of the PTO, and not place a lateral load on the shaft.
Or mount a pulley on the prop shaft driving/driven by a motor. Running the engine in gear then would charge the batteries via regen. With the gearbox in neutral the electric motor could either turn the prop or charge batteries via regeneration courtesy of the trailing prop. You could still carry a portable generator but you would also have the diesel for charging and propulsion. You wouldn't need a thrust bearing since the prop shaft is still coupled to the diesels gearbox.
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