Fuel for a day out

[Kawasaki]

Without over complicating things I was wondering what each of you spend on fuel for a typical day out and on what boat

 

[Bigplumbs]

When I started looking for a cruiser to upgrade my cuddy speedboat fuel costs were a major concern. I'd spend hours researching costs and consumption and spent days going through various simulations such as this http://www.boat-fuel-economy.com/ try to work out what my spend would be and budget etc. Basically I was worried I was dreaming and simply couldn't afford it all once I had bought the boat. Guess what, I cant yet somehow manage to muddle on and as you know I'm out every weekend anyway. Fuel which was such a major concern was dwarfed by the reality of ownership. The boat without the man maths works out at close on £460 a weekend for this season all up. That's before fuel. How did I get to that figure? £6k outdrives overhaul, 2k mooring and hard costs, 3k vinyls in cockpit replacement, 1.6 k engine service and maintenance items, remainder sundries to total 15k. I might use 1.5k in fuel in the average season or just 10% of my spend. Dont get hung up on fuel and dont buy a big boat if you dont have a job and are skint as you profess. You have 3 already!

EDIT

Before you say it was a bad year what with outdrives etc last year was worse. Boat spend came to 25k.

No I don't have 3 I have 5.

I am not after a big boat I am after something in the 25 foot size. Mooring costs are only £95 a year for me and I do most of my own work on my boats so fuel cost is more significant for me than it is perhaps others. I am not after loads of argument and discussion I just wanted people to post some figures and their boat details. This was described in my first post. Always difficult on here for people to answer the question asked. They seem to prefer to answer one they think should have been asked. Most would make good or bad politicians

 

[Bigplumbs]

Kawasaki !!!!!! That's it. That was the question I asked. So an answer might look something like this:

Boat. Sealine S23
Engine KAD 32 on Red Diesel
Fuel cost of a typical day out £60

How hard can that be

Dennis

 

[Bigplumbs]

Just came back from a long weekend (2 full days boating at quite fast speeds) on my Bow Rider and fuel spend was

Boat: Fletcher 17 Foot Bow Rider
Engine Mercury Outboard 115 HP 2 Stroke Petrol
Fuel and 2 stroke oil cost for the weekend about £100

Dennis

 

[Bigplumbs]

Last week I went out for about 5 hours on one day in my little Rib, mixed speeds between 3 and 20 knots. Fuel costs were

Boat Valiant 3.4 m Rib
Engine Mariner 15 hp 4 stroke
Fuel cost about £7.00

Dennis

 

[Kawasaki]

Tried to post earlier but made a pigs ear of it!
Sunday
7 metre 'Pilot House' boat
150 Yam outboard (all new virtually) 3 Adults onboard
4 hour trip
Well, more than that but the motor was running for 4 hours
Average speed on the trip
17.3 kts
Mileage covered 69.2
The hours when the motor was running were mostly at 4 thousand revs whislt planing
We had speed limits to cope with and a bit of a lumpy sea in some places
So a good mix of engine revs and sea conditions etc
So
That's 14 litres per hour because when we 'topped up; it was 56 litres
To Me thats like 2 plus gallons an hour
You lot can work the 'miles per gallon/litre ' if you wish!
To me, that is quite cheap motorboating!

 

[Bigplumbs]

Tried to post earlier but made a pigs ear of it!
Sunday
7 metre 'Pilot House' boat
150 Yam outboard (all new virtually) 3 Adults onboard
4 hour trip
Well, more than that but the motor was running for 4 hours
Average speed on the trip
17.3 kts
Mileage covered 69.2
The hours when the motor was running were mostly at 4 thousand revs whislt planing
We had speed limits to cope with and a bit of a lumpy sea in some places
So a good mix of engine revs and sea conditions etc
So
That's 14 litres per hour because when we 'topped up; it was 56 litres
To Me thats like 2 plus gallons an hour
You lot can work the 'miles per gallon/litre ' if you wish!
To me, that is quite cheap motorboating!

So about £65 for the 'day out' on the boat

 

[MrB]

Can't wait for MYAG/jfm/BartW to post their annual fuel bill.............

Don't quote me on this but i remember a thread where JFM was willing to do some monetary exchange from Sterling to Euros to the tune of 100,000 Euros to help out a forum member (Mapism?) as that was his annual fuel burn on average in Euros lol. :encouragement: (MYAG is probably double lol)

 

[Kawasaki]

So about £65 for the 'day out' on the boat

Yep

 

[Momac]

So about £65 for the 'day out' on the boat

Obviously very much depends how many hours you run and at what speed.
Sounds like you want a boat to go out for a spin and and then go home. I use my boat in a different way - its a place to stay overnight or for a week or two - also a place to eat and met with friends for a drink - as well as the pleasure of the journey by water. I do a lot of travelling at slow speed and use the boat to travel at speed where it enables journeys to be completed in one tide . The speed bit is fun of course but thats not my priority.
What are your priorities? Do you need a boat for blasting about economically and is it to be used for staying overnight or not ?

 

[Bigplumbs]

Obviously very much depends how many hours you run and at what speed.
Sounds like you want a boat to go out for a spin and and then go home. I use my boat in a different way - its a place to stay overnight or for a week or two - also a place to eat and met with friends for a drink - as well as the pleasure of the journey by water. I do a lot of travelling at slow speed and use the boat to travel at speed where it enables journeys to be completed in one tide . The speed bit is fun of course but thats not my priority.
What are your priorities? Do you need a boat for blasting about economically and is it to be used for staying overnight or not ?

The Boat I am thinking of will be used much like yours. I have other boats for the blasting about thing.

All I want is rough estimates of fuel cost per day on average or even a range. I know there are many factors but it is still possible to quote an average as I am others have done

Dennis

 

[jrudge]

There is no average. You need to say the boat.

My s65 used 345lph. The s58 170.

The differences are so big as to make any average meaningless.

It is simply fuel per hour times hours. How many hours also depends. In Palma the minimum trip return will be an hour. In cala dor maybe 15 mins.

So both variables vary a lot.

 

[Murv]

Boat. 1989 Fairline Turbo 36
Engine 2 X Volvo TAMD61A (5.6 litre 6-pot turbo diesels)
Fuel cost of a typical day out: A typical day would probably be pottering around the river, something like 10 litres/hour average.

Fuel cost is very significant for me, being poor as a church mouse.
We tend to take the view of an earlier poster, fill up the (comparatively) large tanks and the fuel lasts for months.
But, we don't really do so many days out now, having the larger boat and one that doesn't break down every 10 minutes means that most of our usage now is an overnighter at least, even though we don't go any big distance.
Just did a slightly more major fuel burn by our standards, a club trip to Ramsgate which is somewhere around an 80 mile round trip and mostly at 16-17 knots rather than our usual speed limit restricted 6 knots.
Topped up with 250 litres before we left as the tanks were low (they need to be run down before being lifted out shortly) and burned all that plus a chunk more.
There's absolutely no way we could afford to do that every weekend, but as a bank holiday break a great time was had by all and that's what it's all about

Here's a quick snap of some of those £20 notes flying out of the exhausts on Saturday, but against a clear Blue sky, it seems well worth it!

 

[omega2]

Boat. 1989 Fairline Turbo 36
Engine 2 X Volvo TAMD61A (5.6 litre 6-pot turbo diesels)
Fuel cost of a typical day out: A typical day would probably be pottering around the river, something like 10 litres/hour average.

Fuel cost is very significant for me, being poor as a church mouse.
We tend to take the view of an earlier poster, fill up the (comparatively) large tanks and the fuel lasts for months.
But, we don't really do so many days out now, having the larger boat and one that doesn't break down every 10 minutes means that most of our usage now is an overnighter at least, even though we don't go any big distance.
Just did a slightly more major fuel burn by our standards, a club trip to Ramsgate which is somewhere around an 80 mile round trip and mostly at 16-17 knots rather than our usual speed limit restricted 6 knots.
Topped up with 250 litres before we left as the tanks were low (they need to be run down before being lifted out shortly) and burned all that plus a chunk more.
There's absolutely no way we could afford to do that every weekend, but as a bank holiday break a great time was had by all and that's what it's all about

Here's a quick snap of some of those £20 notes flying out of the exhausts on Saturday, but against a clear Blue sky, it seems well worth it!

Try running straight you will go further on your gallon. LOL

 

[Murv]

Try running straight you will go further on your gallon. LOL

Tell me about it! Wife absolutely refuses to use the auto helm, I'm an absolute convert to it even though we only got it working recently.
The amount of fuel it must save is probably quite eye-opening so I need to have stern words before our trip to Holland in the summer!

 

[Bigplumbs]

There is no average. You need to say the boat.

My s65 used 345lph. The s58 170.

The differences are so big as to make any average meaningless.

It is simply fuel per hour times hours. How many hours also depends. In Palma the minimum trip return will be an hour. In cala dor maybe 15 mins.

So both variables vary a lot.

Did you read the original post !?

 

[Bigplumbs]

Boat. 1989 Fairline Turbo 36
Engine 2 X Volvo TAMD61A (5.6 litre 6-pot turbo diesels)
Fuel cost of a typical day out: A typical day would probably be pottering around the river, something like 10 litres/hour average.

Fuel cost is very significant for me, being poor as a church mouse.
We tend to take the view of an earlier poster, fill up the (comparatively) large tanks and the fuel lasts for months.
But, we don't really do so many days out now, having the larger boat and one that doesn't break down every 10 minutes means that most of our usage now is an overnighter at least, even though we don't go any big distance.
Just did a slightly more major fuel burn by our standards, a club trip to Ramsgate which is somewhere around an 80 mile round trip and mostly at 16-17 knots rather than our usual speed limit restricted 6 knots.
Topped up with 250 litres before we left as the tanks were low (they need to be run down before being lifted out shortly) and burned all that plus a chunk more.
There's absolutely no way we could afford to do that every weekend, but as a bank holiday break a great time was had by all and that's what it's all about

Here's a quick snap of some of those £20 notes flying out of the exhausts on Saturday, but against a clear Blue sky, it seems well worth it!

So if you burned about 350 lts and it is red diesel bought at a marina. A total Cost of about £300 - £350 on fuel

 

[Momac]

The Sealine S23 has 225 litre tank . So lets say leave a reserve of 25 litres that’s 200 litres available. At 25 knots on smooth water that’s 30 litres/hr so 6.6hrs running and 166 nautical miles range.
At 4.5knots its 3 litres per hour so 66.6hrs running giving a range of 300miles.

 

[julians]

Its an odd question as there is no such thing as a typical day,so the closest i can come up with is the total spent on fuel in a year divided by the number of days i used the boat, on that basis i get £26 per day for a windy 25 with a 260hp diesel engine.

 

[Murv]

So if you burned about 350 lts and it is red diesel bought at a marina. A total Cost of about £300 - £350 on fuel

I'm not sure on marina prices, but I think it's well over £1.00/litre at the marinas down this way.
We get cheap diesel at the club, I'd have to look at the receipt but think it's about 72p/litre at the moment on 60:40 split.