Days Mileage when cruising

[claymore]

I'm a member of Clyde Cruising Club and have just received my copy of the journal which has the award winning cruise logs in from 2002. One was written by the owners of Blue Quest a Nelson 45 recounting their journey from Crinan to Lochinver and then across the top of Scotland, over to Norway and Sweden then back to Inverness.
I'm staggered by the mileage they were putting in - for example they went from Crinan at 09:30 and were in Lochinver at 18:30 which I've worked out is an average of around 16 knots. As I work on 5 knots as a decent average this would have taken me around 3 days!
Are these the normal speeds and distances you motorboaties cover in normal cruising days or was Blue Quest in a hurry?
Also what kind of fuel consumption would he be getting from his twin 300 odd HP Cats?There were days when they only covered 30 or 40 miles once across the North Sea which is obviously a more normal distance for us - but it must be quite something to think you can get across the North Sea in around 20 hours - I'd have to be counting on 60 odd as a conservative estimate- with the obvious implications of prolonged exposure to weather systems
This is just a point of interest - I don't think I'll be converted!

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Claymore
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[Renegade_Master]

Longest trip to date. (beat previous one on UK South coast of 130nm)

Left Ibiza about 7.30 am, fueled up in Cartagena mainland Spain (after 154nm)wasted three hours waiting for fuel man to get back from siesta,

Arrived at Almerimar 21.15 with 270nm clocked for the day at 22.5knt average speed including a couple of hours night nav but in perfect conditions.

On the 270 leg at average of 22.5 knts, fuel burned about 19.2 GPH or 0.85 GPM



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[tcm]

Mileage

A reasonable planing boat could plan on the basis of 20 knots or more, though perhaps not in ooer north bits of the North sea. Also, a Nelson ain't very fast, so 16 knots is quite reasonable, not fast, not slow.

A decent bashin along on many midsize 40-60 foot powerboats is about 10 hours running, but i think they shd have started at first light, tho praps tides made this inadvisable.

Nelsons win in the yot clubs partly cos they did a nice plan, and of course i bet cos they are the acceptable face of stinkiepottering, like "trawler" style (motor) yachts - (qv that grand banks you were v quiet about) - and not swish fast sunseekers, which would never win oh dear me no. Anyway, nobody in a sunseeker would go to Norway for chrissakes. Or start in scotland probly, but ahem, anyway not to worry.

As in raggiland, one might take 70ish% of actual top speed as "planning" speed in reasonable conditions, depending on how tight a git one is fuel-wise. So, I use erm about 65%, 10 hours at bout 23 knots means erm 230 miles is enough thanks for one day.

Note also that "cars " can travel quite bit faster than 16knots, and "aeroplanes" go even faster and have no sails at all. But these are no fun cos they make no wash and the drinks are more miserly measured than they are on powerboats.




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[hlb]

Nelsons are very seaworthy but slow boats. Longest I've done in a day was an aborted trip from Milford haven to Padstow. Got about 20 miles off and got a strong wind warning. Well it was me that asked the coast guards if the force 5 they gave me when we set off, was still valid, cos the waves were over the fly bridge. So they changed there mind to a f7. Padstow did not look so inviting with that behind me, so diverted to Swansea. Did not set off till 4pm. About 130 miles. Still in Swansee all tied up before the 9PM apointment at the pub,

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Haydn

 

[qsiv]

Back when I had a Nelson we would reckon on 18/20 knots average when cruising, and would in general try to limit passages to 6 hours or less (but we did have children from 0 to 7 through much of that ownership). I would suspect the longest runs we did were Jersey to Lezardrieux and Lezardrieux to Benodet, which from memory were about 6 hours apiece (to put it in perspective we did the entire trip under sail in each of the last two years and it took about 36 hours each time).

As for consumption - it very much depended on seastate and just excactly how hard we were pushing but about 12 to 20 gallons an hour (we had an older, narrow Nelson 42 with a pair of Sabre 220C engines, which gave us a maximum of 24 knots light and clean). To put it in perspective last year under sail we covered about 2000 miles, and burnt 45 gallons of diesel (including genny and LOTS of motor sailing) - but to even it up I bought a new Code 0, which probably cost more than I ever spent on diesel, but will last quite a few seasons.

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[AJW]

When doing some extended RIB cruising (in a 9.5m boat) longest day has been Kyle of Lochalsh to Peterhead with a fuel and fish and chips stop in Scabster. About 280nm in 12 hrs. Not particulary fast but we were support boat for a 4.8m RIB on a round Britain raid. Much more impressive was the achievement of 7 of these boats going round Britain in 10 days!

So on extended RIB cruising, mileages of 150-250 pd are norm although clearly less if conditions deteriorate. The humans usually give out before the RIB does! This was all on diesel boat (single 300hp) with consumption around 1.5-2 l per mile.

In petrol head mode in my RIB (200hp new tech HPDI outboard) an average trip might be lunchtime trip up the coast from Harwich to Southwold. Around 75nm return & 1l per mile consumption at 30kts. Mate of mine did Plymouth - Guernsy in about 2hrs 20mins but he does have twin 225hp o/b's. Consumption OUCH! but not as bad as a racing Scorpion with twin 300promaxes which cost £5 a mile to run!

AJ

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[Guest]

Longest run for us saw us leaving Falmouth at 7am, and reaching Christchurch Bar at 1.25pm (5 mins ahead of the ETA we gave Falmouth Coastguard, which was rather satisfying). About 145nm in pretty awful conditions (solid green over the coachroof at one point, and a good F5/6 on the nose crossing Lyme Bay).

As others have said, the people quit long before the machinery does.

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[Renegade_Master]

Reckon my 270's holding out at the moment

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[qsiv]

Ooh I dont know about people v Machinery - we broke two engine mountings coming out of L'Aberwrach 12 years ago. It was a a little bit rough, and my attitude to SWMBO of 'it will flatten out when we get round the corner' didnt cut much ice, so we turned round and high tailed it back. Once back at anchor in the river the coxn of the life boat came across, and said that he had seldom seen conditions as unpleasant in summer..

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[claymore]

Grand Banks

I've been booked on to the thing again - weekend 21st June. Praying for flat calms or the engines blowing up on the 14th

<hr width=100% size=1>regards
Claymore
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[miket]

On or main holidays we tend to do a long distance the 1st day, just to reach our preferred destination, otherwise I try to limit cruising to 3 or 4 hours maximum. We cruise around 20 kts.

I find the journey, especially S Coast to France/ CI's, very boring.

I think it is one of the major differences between the sailing fraternity and ourselves. They enjoy getting there, we enjoy being there.

My view.

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