Is diesel always the best option?

[BrendanS]

Ho! Hum!!

See you down in Salcombe next bank holiday weekend?

The club seem to have various options as to ovenight stays etc. Me, I'm doing the usual (weather permitting) blast straight there in one shot with refuel at Weymouth, because I'm a petrolhead and not many other choices.

If you're there, we can have a few beers over old relicks discussion of best way to .........? maybe eat a few lobsters while I quake in my boots about how I'm going to get home again with F5/6/7 blowing up?

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[blueglass]

Went down this road myself a few years ago with around 30K to spend on a 32 footer. After touring round endless aged diesel hulks at this price I finally bit the bullet and bought a much newer Fairline Sedan 32 ft flybridge boat with twin 175HP petrols. Ok I had the pleasure of a much better boat - ( one which my wife would actually set foot on) but soon got depressed with the running costs. A typical weekend would cost £200 in fuel, and the boat began to be used more and more as a weekend cottage with the occasional short foray. Boat now sold and looking for diesels - although this time with a bit more cash to splash.
You can consider the wider arguments on long term costs as I have just read , but once the boat is bought ( usually with mickey mouse finance - let's face it ) the fuel costs are what you pay for out of your pocket money and it hurts!

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[ari]

Agree entirely, get past 30ft and into two substantial v6/v8 petrol engines and you are looking at 20 gall/hour+ and running costs of £100/hour, and no matter how you've done the maths, if you know that the hour trip down the coast to your favourite anchorage and back yesterday cost you £200 then the idea of blowing another £300 today making for a £500 weekend just in fuel is ridiculous. if you can afford to do that every weekend then you can afford a diesel engined boat!

Also the performance aspect goes out the window as well. Get to 30ft and you've a pair of 200hp AQAD 41 diesels giving you 30+ knots out of a Targa 33 for example.

However, at the upto 25ft single engine end of the market buying something like a Sealine 240 with a V6 205hp petrol makes a great seal of sense for all the reasons of my last post further up this thread, and with consumption at a planing but no where near flat out speed of maybe six gallons an hour suddenly £25/hour running costs are no burden. Remember, diesels not free, you're probably looking at a £15-£20 an hour premium and much better performance and smoother quieter power.

I reckon 26ft and twin engines is where diesel advantages take off, anything single engined and smaller than that and I'd go with petrol every time.

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[hlb]

Well. Thats sort of right. I found that sub 25ft and petrol. Your not able to go very far anyway. So the problems cancel each other out.

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Haydn

 

[neale]

Don't listen to those who say you can't really go anywhere in a sub 25ft petrol boat. If you have the range and the weather is right you can go to most of the places that larger diesel boats go. It just requires a bit more planning, preparation and research into fuel availability.

Last year I took my 25ft petrol boat from North Essex to Guernsey a trip of around 300 miles over 4 days.

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