Falmouth to Solent....ideas please

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Sailorsam101

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Afternoon all.

I've just done a deal on a very nice Targa 33 and will be taking it from Falmouth back to the Solent. I'm a yacht master instructor (sail) so know all about wind, weather, tides etc but I'm new to this motorboat lark.

So over to you lot...given wind and weather is Ok how would you do the trip. I was thinking of a day to Brixham and then the next day to the Solent. Does this sound reasonable?

The boat uses 8 gallons ph total at 20 ktm and has a 600 late tank.

All ideas welcome please.
 
It's doable in one hit but I'd split the journey. Your stop in Brixham sounds reasonable.

8gph at 20knts is optimistic. Not impossible if you come up with the tide and have a couple if knts of tidal push but I'd be sceptical. Id certainly assume a 20% margin for error.

Where did you get the fuel burn figures from? The owner/broker or somewhere else. What are the engines? I'm guessing AD41 on sterndrives?

As with sailing I wouldn't passage plan at you cruise speed as any weather and a small planing boat can be down to displacement speed very quickly, slamming is not something you want to do for a long period. Wind over tide and shirt seas are more of an issue than in a sailing boat
 
Thanks for the reply.

The 8gph came from the owner and the engines are 350 hrs AD41DP. The owner said they were some of the last fitted before gong to KAD engines. He said that this Targa was the last 33 sold new in the UK.
 
Look at it another way based on owning boats with these motors , most economical engine speed is around 3100 rpm, this should give you 2 mpg, I know they give 1.75 mpg on a shaft drive corniche which is heavier than the targa 33.
 
Try and avoid head seas for a long crossing, as planing boats are all horrible into the waves. You're going the right way for prevailing winds at least, so it shouldn't be difficult to plan the trip in a following sea.
 
Ok, Id be suprised. To give you an idea I had a Bavaria 330 which is a very similar size and weight to the targa 33. I ran her for some 120 hours with KAD43s and kept a fuel log. Average fuel consumption was 46l/hr at a cruise of 24knts once on the plane. This equated to somewhere between 1.8 and 2.1 mpg depending on the tide. Generally speaking once in the plane the miles per gallon is about constant.

The 43s have more power than the 41s so have more slack at any given speed. 20 year old engines and drives are going to be more fuel hungry than when they came out of the box and 8gph at a cruise would have been very very good back then. 2.5mpg seems to high. Take my 2.0mpg has an average (it actually was 1,97) and you get 10gph which I reckon is much closer to the mark.
 
It is a great trip of course,so don't just rush by.We would normally do two to three hours and take lunch or overnight.it's a very reasonable day and a half.
Fowey,Plymouth,Brixham,Weymouth,Lulworth...stop in a sheltered anchorage or nip into a town.You will need fuel anyway so take a few extra hours and have a great trip. The only passage planning is for the big headland overfalls and as others have said avoid into the seas as it gets very tiresome and a bit tiring.Unless the sea us like a millpond eating a drinking underway isn't a reality in 33 ft.
 
We've just done that trip and on the way there, we did just that...Hamble to Brixham then onto Falmouth. The 1st leg to Brixham, about 90nm, we did about 250l iirc. This was about 24knts @ 3000rpm in a Sealine SC35 with twin D4 260s. Great trip but the coastline hop back taking in some more stops was even better.
L
:)
 
My wife and I completed a similar trip last October, would suggest more stops if time allows but not sure what your circumstances are re time, your plan is fine but you will be knackered
 
gjgm said:
It is a great trip of course,so don't just rush by.We would normally do two to three hours and take lunch or overnight.it's a very reasonable day and a half.
Fowey,Plymouth,Brixham,Weymouth,Lulworth...stop in a sheltered anchorage or nip into a town.You will need fuel anyway so take a few extra hours and have a great trip. The only passage planning is for the big headland overfalls and as others have said avoid into the seas as it gets very tiresome and a bit tiring.Unless the sea us like a millpond eating a drinking underway isn't a reality in 33 ft.
Click to expand...

+1we did Falmouth to Hamble in one leg this year....had the weather coming in bad and had timed the trip to have wind and tide behind us for Lyme Bay.

It's a long day and I wouldn't do it again, we usually use Plymouth to break the journey and then go with wind and tide for Lyme Bay, that's the only way to get the sea in your favour for the whole trip, go from Falmouth to say Portland in one go and you will have to take a hit somewhere on the journey.

Personally I'd do:
Falmouth to Salcombe- 3hrs
Salcombe to Poole - 4.5 hrs
Poole to Solent - 3 hrs

But whichever way you do it, congrats on the boat and good luck.
 
We did the trip with Lisilou in a Targa 34 with KAD300s.

Overnight at Brixham, it breaks the trip and allows a refuel, unless the tank has been recently professionally cleaned (hatches cut in the top etc) you'll suck all sorts of suff up once bellow half a tank if the weather roughs up! Take it from someone who found out last year and and has sparkly professionally cleaned tanks this year! )

You'll aim for slack tide at the races and over falls etc but wind behind is also nicer too in a fast planing boat.

If you can find a nice big 45+ footer to tuck in behind they do a great job of taking the tops off the waves and chop!
 
Speak to Jon Mendez he did an escorted trip with a few on here this year, re this trip he is an expert and will have all the data you want, just google him
 
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