The costs of pulling the throttles back

[dylanwinter]

thanks for your honesty lads

I really enjoyed this thread

deepest apologies for not really knowing that forwards is faster - backwards is slower

Just like the Volvo controls on the slug - although as built backwards was datser - fwds was slower

at some stage they were changed over because the previous owner worked for Trinity house and he was worried about gettiong confused when he took the helm of one of their boats.

what I really learned was that when a mobo slows down he is shoving such quanities of his hard earned cash down the drain

just for the sake of being kind to raggies

so thanks chaps

and I shall also consider it next time a mobo drops off the plane for me

and if they don't then I will assume that the poor blighter at the helm is down his last few bob and is just trying to save on his fuel bill


some other things I have learned

some of you guys have serious quantities of disposable income

but you are also crazy

possibly crazeir than raggies


your pleasures when the boat is in motion are so short lived and sooooo expensive


the moments I love being on my boat most are when she is sailing herself to a new destination and I am standing in the companionway eating my breakfast

the sounds of nature in my ears

and the miracle of the physics going on above my head and in the hull around me where motion is extracted from the interface between air and water

but I am also hugely grateful when the tide turns against me, the wind drops and I pull the string on the Tohatsu and the noisy six hp single cylinder fires up - I know that I am going to get back to the mooring before the water goes away

Dylan


By the way - for you petrol heads I would like to offer my own wake shot of my Honda 2.3 pushing my 18 footer along



and here on my current 23 footer



the little Honda has been a wonderful engine

at three knots in both boats is seems to burn about a pint an hour

beware though chaps - shove it up to four or five knots and fuel consumption almost doubles!

 

[DAKA]

thanks for your honesty lads


the moments I love being on my boat most are when she is sailing herself to a new destination and I am standing in the companionway eating my breakfast

the sounds of nature in my ears

My absolute honesty is the most enjoyable bit is cruising at speed, however the 'boating smirk' starts as soon as you unzip the canopy right up until you zip it back up to leave.
The main difference between power and sail is the wife and kids join us.

I enjoy sailing but the vast majority of wives/families dont like sailing.

The real question isnt about cost of fuel or even if sail per mile is really cheaper as perceived ;

The choice is much simpler ..............



motor in comparative luxury with your happy family by your side.

or

sail alone with occasional fellow sailors joining you.

 

[blueglass]

motor in comparative luxury with your happy family by your side.

or

sail alone with occasional fellow beer gutted or gay sailors joining you.

My understanding from many previous posts by searush, dylan etc is that they genuinely believe that you can only appreciate sunsets, sea life, tranquil anchorages etc from the decks of a sailing boat. The more spartan the sailboat the greater the appreciation of the natural world.
It seems they can't understand that we can do all of this on a mobo from the relative luxury of an upholstered seat with all the comforts of modern life at hand. It doesn't have to hurt.

 

[rafiki_]

My absolute honesty is the most enjoyable bit is cruising at speed, however the 'boating smirk' starts as soon as you unzip the canopy right up until you zip it back up to leave.
The main difference between power and sail is the wife and kids join us.

I enjoy sailing but the vast majority of wives/families dont like sailing.

The real question isnt about cost of fuel or even if sail per mile is really cheaper as perceived ;

The choice is much simpler ..............



motor in comparative luxury with your happy family by your side.

or

sail alone with occasional fellow sailors joining you.

Daka is right. I too enjoy sailing, but I also enjoy time with my family. Unfortunately they dont mix, so the mobo is the right choice for us.

 

[dylanwinter]

My understanding from many previous posts by searush, dylan etc is that they genuinely believe that you can only appreciate sunsets, sea life, tranquil anchorages etc from the decks of a sailing boat. The more spartan the sailboat the greater the appreciation of the natural world.
It seems they can't understand that we can do all of this on a mobo from the relative luxury of an upholstered seat with all the comforts of modern life at hand. It doesn't have to hurt.

I am sure what you say is true

and it is nothing to do with deprivation

if I wanted deprivation then I would use the duck punt and a bivvi bag

I take great pleasure in the beauty of the physics

but most of all - and the thing you guys are generally missing - is the noise

I have been to the Farne islands in a tour boat

a mobo of course

I had a wonderful trip

visiually stunning and to see the birds and the seals was amazing

I shot some video - but the audio track has chuggeder thumpeder all over it

but I also went this summer in my own boat

we spent two days and a night sailing around them

the engine ran for a max of 20 minutes of the 36 hours

the rest of the time I could hear the Farnes

the seals calling to their young as they school them in the gentle art of murdering mullet

the gannets scrapping with each other

the gulls calling

the sound of the waves on the rocks

you nwould be amazed at how often your ears get you to look at stuff your eyes would have missed

certainly at anchor or on a mooring it makes very little diffrence what you are sitting on

except of course I am likely to be further upstream and sitting on the mud

but to be able to sit on a boat and watch and listen as the scenery unfolds around you

give me a sailing boat any day

and then of course there is the cost of fuel.....

and I am a freelance hack married to a supply teacher

so money comes into it a bit as well

but if I had lots of money I would only go out and buy a westerly centaur - it would be a good one with all the bits on it

new engine, functioning electronics, webasto, full standing headroom and a tinker tramp for going up the creeks

top spend - maybe £18,000


but that is as high as my aspirations reach

but I have no aspirations to own a 50 footer of any description

If I had enugh money I might own two centaurs - one on the east coast and the other the west coast of scotland

I have tried the mobo experience on hire boats and even on a friends planing 25 footer

not for me

I would rather ride a bike

D

 

[rhino_mac]

I have a colleague at work that sails (recently bought his first boat) and all I ever hear is how it's all about the journey and speed isn't everything.

I've given up trying to tell him that I can still do 6 knots as easily as he can. And while I can do 6 knots any time I like, he'll never be able to do 30 knots should the need arise. Taking up the point above, I can easily get four adults and four kids on board and my boat is a very social experience. I am more than happy taking my four year old onboard my boat. My colleagues family won't sail with him because the boat heels etc etc so he invariably single hands which although I agree must be satisfying as a challenge, it sounds pretty lonely to me. Sailing also seems even more weather dependent than motor boating. If the wind is up, it always seems grey. If the wind is down and it's sunny, you have to motor everywhere. I've sailed before and it's great, but to me it's all about time out on the water and I don't get all the attitudes of some sailors as if it is wind powered or it's wrong. Very strange idea to me.

Back on track, my boat isn't the biggest and is relatively economic to run compared to some, but I don't worry about fuel any more. It was a concern before I bought it but mooring, servicing and general repairs cost me 4 times my fuel spend annually.

 

[blueglass]

Dylan,
I also have been on a tour boat to the Farnes and agree with what you say but on our boat, pottering around at 7 knots, the engines are nothing but a gentle murmur - less decibels than flapping canvas on sailboats I have encountered. And thats from the helm. For any crew who choose to sit up on the bows, the engines are totally inaudible. Only the sounds of the sea - as music to my ears as much as they would appear to be to yours.

 

[rafiki_]

Apologies for the slight thread drift, but I had a colleague who owned a sailing boat, moored down at Swansea. It was the pride of his life, and rightly so. However, never once did he get the sails out, he motored everywhere, so he was genuinely compromised. He really wanted a motorboat, but could not admit it even to himself. Strange!

 

[AdeOlly]

Daka is right. I too enjoy sailing, but I also enjoy time with my family. Unfortunately they dont mix, so the mobo is the right choice for us.

+1. Our boating is a family affair, and I'm sorry to say my wife won't do the saily bit, so it's a mobo or nothing. I do enjoy sailing too, but to be honest I don't have the inclination or time to boat on my own at six knots..... My fuel cost is ~15% of total ownership costs when everything is included, i.e. cost of capital, depreciation, berthing, maintenance, insurance, etc etc etc.

Also, I dunno what daka sticks in his engines, but I reckon it costs me at most 50 pence to take my 34' mobo from standstill to 25 knots cruising speed.

 

[oceanfroggie]

Your pleasures when the boat is in motion are so short lived

Hi Dylan

Not so for us anyhow. We mostly cruise at displacement speeds, and generally only plane when it is more comfortable on a passage (ie due sea state), or when there is a short weather window and a long passage leg is required at the start or end of a holiday. Chilling out and moving about on a boat at displacement speed on auto helm is so relaxing. What we like is "being on the water" and the boat is merely a platform to take us to wonderful places to spend "time". As much as the weather dictates we mostly anchor at remote scenic anchorages rather than at sterile noisy caravan park marinas. We boat to get away from it all and for peace and quiet. We can cruise at 20kt if we needed to but generally 6-7kt is more common for us in calm waters. Sometimes in a chop or Atlantic swell it's too uncomfortable at D speeds, so we pick a speed to suit the wave pattern on the day, be that SD speed or planning speed. It is not uncommon for us to take on 12hr passages. We occasionally give the engines a run out as it is not good to run them only at lower RPMs (ie glazing, etc). The fuel is worth every penny as motoring has given us the "time" to get to places where we want to spend "time" slowly.

Noel

PS: If planning we always deplane at least 200m before passing smaller or slower craft in head on situations or 100m before passing from astern, and about 400m before passing moored, anchored, or drifting vessels (ie wake travels). It's too late to deplane just before passing.

 

[rustybarge]

Wally yachts have come up with a solution to fuel consumption in the mid- 20 mtr range, extra wide beam, small continuous duty diesels, 8-10kts cruise, 2.3 mpg.......wow!!!

View attachment 35688View attachment 35689View attachment 35690

WALLY//ACE

OVERVIEW // IMAGES
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS // LAYOUT
COLOUR SELECTOR
WALLY//ACE CONSTRUCTION FILM
Length overall // 26.23 m – 86’0"
Length hull (measured) // 23.95 m – 78’7”
Length waterline // 25.50 m – 83’8”
Beam max // 7.75 m – 25’4"
Draught drives down // (half load) 1.75 m – 5’7"
Displacement (half load) // 94 tons – 207,234 lbs
Fuel tanks // 14,000 ltr
Fresh water tanks // 3,000 ltr
Engines // 2 x CAT C12 287 bkW @ 1800 rpm
Max speed // 12 kn
Accommodation // 6-8 guests + 4 crew
Naval architecture // Wally / Allseas
Styling // Wally
Interior design // Wally
Range (cruising speed) // 5,000 nm @ 9 kn

 

[DAKA]

I am sure what you say is true

and it is nothing to do with deprivation

if I wanted deprivation then I would use the duck punt and a bivvi bag

I take great pleasure in the beauty of the physics

but most of all - and the thing you guys are generally missing - is the noise

I have been to the Farne islands in a tour boat

a mobo of course

I had a wonderful trip

visiually stunning and to see the birds and the seals was amazing

I shot some video - but the audio track has chuggeder thumpeder all over it

but I also went this summer in my own boat

we spent two days and a night sailing around them

the engine ran for a max of 20 minutes of the 36 hours

the rest of the time I could hear the Farnes

the seals calling to their young as they school them in the gentle art of murdering mullet

the gannets scrapping with each other

the gulls calling

the sound of the waves on the rocks

you nwould be amazed at how often your ears get you to look at stuff your eyes would have missed

certainly at anchor or on a mooring it makes very little diffrence what you are sitting on

except of course I am likely to be further upstream and sitting on the mud

but to be able to sit on a boat and watch and listen as the scenery unfolds around you

give me a sailing boat any day

and then of course there is the cost of fuel.....

and I am a freelance hack married to a supply teacher

We have also done the Farne Isles, on our Farline Corniche , we had a fridge freezer, kettle, oven, microwave, Aircon which you may not think are essentials but we had our 17 day old baby on board.

It took two weeks there and back ( I think it has taken you two years just to get there) , a month later we were in the Channel Islands.

As to noise, there isnt any engine noise on a flybridge (unless you hear the echo of the exhaust off a quay side), you just hear water noise .

 

[dylanwinter]

I hear what you say in that you can hear the world from a quiet part of a boat

my brother has a canal boat

sitting in the front almost 70 feet from the engine is very pleasant

but...... there is still that low level rumble of an engine

I am sure my ears and my microphone would pick it up

however, when compared to the total audio experience of sailing down that same stretch of river without that imposed engine rumble

I am also editing videos of when I was in the wash and I had the beast running at half revs then there was some pleasure to be had from the mechanical perfection of a single cylinder volvo still yakking away after 50 years of stout service - I am an ag engineer by training and I know that the sound of an engine can be a pleasurable thing

no audio pleasure in any outboard of any type whatsoever

apart from perhaps the singular sound of a 2hp seagull



sailing boats can be made to move in utter silence

and sails working at full efficiency never flap


when I get to the editing the bits I filmed on the rivers and the farnes then you will appreciate the difference

I promise it is an entirely different experience when you can hear no engines at all

coming up the canal from The trent to Lincoln I put the mast up and sailed about three quarters of the distance

there were times when the sounds of engines from aeroplanes, or cars, or other boats with engines as noisy as my Tohatsu, or tractors fades to inaudability and only then can you really hear the warblers in the reeds, the sound of a gentle breeze in the tree overhead

I always thought that the best part of each day on the canal boat was the moment when the engine finally went off


I write a column in an American sailing magazine

this was written on board while I was sailing from The Trent to the Forth

http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/bl...mns-for-small-craft-advisor-comments-welcome/

I did a lot of sailing and did not use much fuel - although the car consumed quite a bit with Jill shuttling back and forth between home and the boat


I blogged it every day

and in lots of places the most interesting boats are the mobos

In my opinion if you have seen one all white scoop sterned fin keeler then you have pretty much seen them all

not true of mobos that is for sure

so I took a lot of shots of them

- traditional hull shapes such as the Cobles which have translated so well from a sailing hull to an astonishingly stable and fuel efficient mobo hull

It is a thing of beauty

http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/S13400051.jpg

a few Big planing Cats - both from the fishermen and from the wind farm support vessels, some great shots of pilot boats of course

they always stir the soul to see them pushing through a tough sea

and the fishermens boats which vary immensely in size and shape

I also spent a night in the notorious Paddy's Hole surrounded by mobos - not one sailing boat among them

I even take stills of mobos

I met this splendid bloke with a preserved MOD motor launch

a wonderful looking boat









The blogs start here

 

[MapisM]

Just a few stats from me

at 10 knots we burn about 25 litres per hour per engine
at 25 knots that goes up to about 175 litres per hour per engine
and yesterday, I opened her up to 31 knots where she said she was doing about 230 litres per hour per engine

Just looked at the fuel burn stats on the engine management system and it reads just over 42,000 litres per engine since new.

So, Deleted User/MapisM what SHOULD be the fuel burn?

Sorry, but I'm not sure to understand your question.
Your ECU-driven engines are giving you that number, so that's the actual figure, period.

If by "should" you mean what is the most appropriate number, I don't think there's such thing as a right (or wrong) answer.
Pretty sure the average liters/hours ratio would be lower if you had always used your boat at D speed - and it would be higher if you had always hammered the throttles.
The sense of my comment was simply that it would be better to look at both hours and fuel burn, rather than hours alone, to have an idea of the engine wear (AOTBE, of course).

 

[Hurricane]

If by "should" you mean what is the most appropriate number, I don't think there's such thing as a right (or wrong) answer. Pretty sure the average liters/hours ratio would be lower if you had always used your boat at D speed - and it would be higher if you had always hammered the throttles.

Yes - that was my point
And, as such, I don't think would be a consideration when buying second hand.

Anyway.
Here's a few video clips of D speeds taken yesterday on a short cruise from Valencia to Sant Carles









So still lots of great weather to be had in late season

 

[oceanfroggie]

Ps: Dylan do you mind me asking just out of idle curiosity why you type using double line spacing? On a thread about fuel consumption there seems to a lot of wasted white space!

 

[MapisM]

Yes - that was my point
And, as such, I don't think would be a consideration when buying second hand.

Hang on, if that's what you meant, the logical conclusion is that it should be indeed a consideration when buying 2nd hand.
If given the choice between the same engines on two boats, one where they made 1000 hours burning 10k litres of fuel, and another where they made 1500 hours burning 5k litres, which do you reckon are the more stressed engines?
Mind, invented as these numbers are, they could well be realistic, when comparing a P boat which spent most of his time at high speed vs. one which spent most of the time pootling around.

 

[jfm]

Hang on, if that's what you meant, the logical conclusion is that it should be indeed a consideration when buying 2nd hand.
If given the choice between the same engines on two boats, one where they made 1000 hours burning 10k litres of fuel, and another where they made 1500 hours burning 5k litres, which do you reckon are the more stressed engines?
Mind, invented as these numbers are, they could well be realistic, when comparing a P boat which spent most of his time at high speed vs. one which spent most of the time pootling around.

I agree with you MapisM and am confused about Hurricane's comments.

A couple of further thoughts about total-fuel-burn data:

1. hours are an easy measure because they are constant across all boats, whereas fuel burn means nothing unless you assess the figure bearing in mind the actual engine. I mean, 1000 hours is 1000 hours (in a very crude way) no matter whether you are looking at a pleasure-duty 200hp engine or 1200hp, or 2200hp. In contrast 50,000 litres of fuel is nothing in a Caterpillar C32 (- it's about 250 hours), but in a Volvo D4 it is a heck of a lot. So if someone tells you an engine has burnt 50,000 litres, you have to rate that figure according to the particular engine you are looking at. There is no "one size fits all", as there is with hours

2. When looking at a used boat, getting BOTH hours and fuel gives you a rough measure of how hard the boat has been driven. If you know an engine's rated max fuel burn is 100 litre per hour, and the fuel burn + hours data tells you it has done an average 80 litres per hour, you know it has been run at WOT most of its life. You might be better buying another boat that has been run at 70% of WOT most of its life

 

[Tender_aft]

I agree with you MapisM and am confused about Hurricane's comments.

A couple of further thoughts about total-fuel-burn data:

1. hours are an easy measure because they are constant across all boats, whereas fuel burn means nothing unless you assess the figure bearing in mind the actual engine. I mean, 1000 hours is 1000 hours (in a very crude way) no matter whether you are looking at a pleasure-duty 200hp engine or 1200hp, or 2200hp. In contrast 50,000 litres of fuel is nothing in a Caterpillar C32 (- it's about 250 hours), but in a Volvo D4 it is a heck of a lot. So if someone tells you an engine has burnt 50,000 litres, you have to rate that figure according to the particular engine you are looking at. There is no "one size fits all", as there is with hours

2. When looking at a used boat, getting BOTH hours and fuel gives you a rough measure of how hard the boat has been driven. If you know an engine's rated max fuel burn is 100 litre per hour, and the fuel burn + hours data tells you it has done an average 80 litres per hour, you know it has been run at WOT most of its life. You might be better buying another boat that has been run at 70% of WOT most of its life

..and of course, if the standard way of driving of the helmsman is to go from tickover to WOT and back again, then this doesn't show up in these figures, so an engine survey, blow test and oil analysis is also needed.

What I see in this thread is that whether it's on a mobo or a sailing yacht many people have a (rather romantic/poetic in some cases) love of being at sea. For me and, it seems a lot of people, it is just that; it doesn't matter whether you use fuel or wind to do it. Costs, whilst interesting to know, don't have to be justified, as it is up to each person what they spend.

The debate will go on ad infinitum; nobody is right, nobody is wrong.

 

[gjgm]

I agree with you MapisM and am confused about Hurricane's comments.

A couple of further thoughts about total-fuel-burn data:

1. hours are an easy measure because they are constant across all boats, whereas fuel burn means nothing unless you assess the figure bearing in mind the actual engine. I mean, 1000 hours is 1000 hours (in a very crude way) no matter whether you are looking at a pleasure-duty 200hp engine or 1200hp, or 2200hp. In contrast 50,000 litres of fuel is nothing in a Caterpillar C32 (- it's about 250 hours), but in a Volvo D4 it is a heck of a lot. So if someone tells you an engine has burnt 50,000 litres, you have to rate that figure according to the particular engine you are looking at. There is no "one size fits all", as there is with hours

2. When looking at a used boat, getting BOTH hours and fuel gives you a rough measure of how hard the boat has been driven. If you know an engine's rated max fuel burn is 100 litre per hour, and the fuel burn + hours data tells you it has done an average 80 litres per hour, you know it has been run at WOT most of its life. You might be better buying another boat that has been run at 70% of WOT most of its life

Perhaps this becomes more of interest going forward, but if you look over recent years I would think most boats were driven pretty much at the suitable cruising speed -suitable for the boat,engines and occupants. So a Grand Banks probably hasnt had the throttles full open for the majority of the time, and a Pershing hasnt been running a D speed. That being the case, engines hours has probably been a very good indicator, for the type of boat. Unless the boat has been refurbished, one that has done a heck of alot of hours will probably be showing wear and tear in more than the engine bay.
As fuel costs have increased and people start using boats/engines other that at typical cruising speed, it might be fuel burnt/hours is something people start to consider.