janjan
New Member
As soon to be boat less boaters we are in the middle of sourcing our next vessel. The Princess 42 has a been a dream. Around a mile per gallon is something we can and have lived with without too much trouble. We fill up every now and again in normal cruising, on an extended cruise such as our trip to the West country last year we fill up more regularly but it's a holiday and so we accept it.
The move up to a larger, circa 50 foot flybridge will, from what I've read, mean circa 0.75 miles per gallon. That coupled with all the doom and gloom on here about the prospect of fuel costing more than fine brandy in a few years made me take stock and have a little look around as to other possibilities to the assumed flybridge purchase. I fell in love with the Elling E4. I saw one some years back in Swanwick and thought it was gorgeous and I quite like the thought of an ocean cat A self righting craft. I haven't been to see one in the flesh so my comments are purely hypothetical. I've read all the articles, seen a few videos and spoken briefly to the factory.
However. To get good fuel efficiency from something like the E4 means circa 7.5-8 knot cruising. If need be it will cruise at circa 16 knots returning the same sort of fuel efficiency as our current Princess 42, around a mile per gallon. But realistically how often are we going to cruise at 7.5 knots? A trip across Lyme Bay goes from 3 hours to 10 and Cowes (from Portsmouth) is getting on for an hour and a half rather than 20-25 minutes.
Like most people I still have to work for a living so I'm cash rich and time poor. Being able to turn up on a Friday nit and have dinner in Cowes means an extra nights holiday rather than sitting in the marina and the sums get even more extreme if we decide to take a run down to Lymington, Yarmouth, Poole or beyond.
The worry in the back of my mind though is resale. When it comes time to get shot of a larger flybridge will it be a historic curiosity in a a sea of displacement / semi displacement craft?
So I crunched some numbers to try and put things into perspective. Keep in mind that we are talking new / nearly new in terms of boats. I'm not running a sub £100k older boat.
Our P42 did around 250 hours in 4 and a half years. I'm actually going to up that a bit and call it 70 hours a year. I'm also going to ignore the fact that 70 hours doesn't mean 70 hours at full chat doing 24 knots (a gallon a mile). In reality I bet that's circa 50 hours of actual cruising.
A quick peek at the Cowes Harbour fuel website shows commercial diesel at £0.83, 60/40 at £1.13 and petrol (so presumably diesel with all the concessions removed) at £1.49. They also list a discount of £0.02 at 500 litres, £0.03 at 1,000 litres. So around £8,316 using 60/40 £11,265 assuming £1.49 a litre.
A 50 footer is going to be around 1/3 more.
So for the relatively few times when I will actually cruise at 7.5 knots does displacement / semi displacement really make that much of a difference?
I see a lot of Nordhavens sitting around in marinas and I see quite a few relatively new ones for sale in the world. 1 suggestion is that people have been caught out in bad weather (because they can't outrun the storm), the family get spooked and the boat goes up for sale. A boat might take the pounding, the fair weather crew might not.
Sorry if the above all seems a bit of a ramble, I'm just trying to get my head around the whole doom and gloom of the forum at the moment in the context of buying a 50 foot boat.
The move up to a larger, circa 50 foot flybridge will, from what I've read, mean circa 0.75 miles per gallon. That coupled with all the doom and gloom on here about the prospect of fuel costing more than fine brandy in a few years made me take stock and have a little look around as to other possibilities to the assumed flybridge purchase. I fell in love with the Elling E4. I saw one some years back in Swanwick and thought it was gorgeous and I quite like the thought of an ocean cat A self righting craft. I haven't been to see one in the flesh so my comments are purely hypothetical. I've read all the articles, seen a few videos and spoken briefly to the factory.
However. To get good fuel efficiency from something like the E4 means circa 7.5-8 knot cruising. If need be it will cruise at circa 16 knots returning the same sort of fuel efficiency as our current Princess 42, around a mile per gallon. But realistically how often are we going to cruise at 7.5 knots? A trip across Lyme Bay goes from 3 hours to 10 and Cowes (from Portsmouth) is getting on for an hour and a half rather than 20-25 minutes.
Like most people I still have to work for a living so I'm cash rich and time poor. Being able to turn up on a Friday nit and have dinner in Cowes means an extra nights holiday rather than sitting in the marina and the sums get even more extreme if we decide to take a run down to Lymington, Yarmouth, Poole or beyond.
The worry in the back of my mind though is resale. When it comes time to get shot of a larger flybridge will it be a historic curiosity in a a sea of displacement / semi displacement craft?
So I crunched some numbers to try and put things into perspective. Keep in mind that we are talking new / nearly new in terms of boats. I'm not running a sub £100k older boat.
Our P42 did around 250 hours in 4 and a half years. I'm actually going to up that a bit and call it 70 hours a year. I'm also going to ignore the fact that 70 hours doesn't mean 70 hours at full chat doing 24 knots (a gallon a mile). In reality I bet that's circa 50 hours of actual cruising.
A quick peek at the Cowes Harbour fuel website shows commercial diesel at £0.83, 60/40 at £1.13 and petrol (so presumably diesel with all the concessions removed) at £1.49. They also list a discount of £0.02 at 500 litres, £0.03 at 1,000 litres. So around £8,316 using 60/40 £11,265 assuming £1.49 a litre.
A 50 footer is going to be around 1/3 more.
So for the relatively few times when I will actually cruise at 7.5 knots does displacement / semi displacement really make that much of a difference?
I see a lot of Nordhavens sitting around in marinas and I see quite a few relatively new ones for sale in the world. 1 suggestion is that people have been caught out in bad weather (because they can't outrun the storm), the family get spooked and the boat goes up for sale. A boat might take the pounding, the fair weather crew might not.
Sorry if the above all seems a bit of a ramble, I'm just trying to get my head around the whole doom and gloom of the forum at the moment in the context of buying a 50 foot boat.
