Budgeting for Number of Days Steaming per Month

[ViribusUnitis]

How many days would you think you'd steam on an average?

Clearly, fuel costs are an important part of a power vessels budget. And the costs of the fuel is directly realted to how many days your going to be steaming each month.

But I'm having trouble wraping my head around how much I might steam. Clearly, it's diffrent from a weekend trip, or even a week trip.

The joke is cruising is 2% sailing, 98% at dock or at anchor. So 2% would be roughly 1 day a month of sailing. Is that right?

Let me know your experence.

Thanks!

[rebel heart]

Not really an answer but more ambiguity. Some people motor everywhere, some people motor even when sailing, and some folks don't even have motors.

Personally I find it has more to do with how tight your schedule is. Weekend (or otherwise time restricted) sailing tends to involve the engine more because you can't wait for good weather and you can't get offshore enough to get away from the diurnal land/sea breeze stuff.

If you're planning a long trip and you can wait for the weather it becomes a much different thing.

[ViribusUnitis]

Well, I put this in the powered boat forum, because I'm looking at powered boats.

So assume 100% motoring. If the boats moving, it's motoring.

How many days do you sail/motor a month? And all day, or just daylight only?

Right now I'm just thinking up and down the Texas coast line, but some day I'd love to go around Flordia, and to the island. You never do know exactly where a trip like that will end once it gets started.

[boatman61]

I imagine all that info would be in your boat/engine spec's.... galls/hr, cruising speed consumption etc... then just gauge the mileage and do a simple sum....

[s/v Moondancer]

From Grenada to Puerto Rico we sailed all but 50 miles of the 500 miles, the wind died on the last leg from St Croix to Puerto Rico and we averaged sailing 3 days and anchoring 4 days per week.

From Puerto Rico to Los Roches we sailed all the way, again about 500 miles.

I have sailed 2000 miles in the last 10 months and used about 50 gallons of diesel in a 55 ft 30 ton sailboat.

[ViribusUnitis]

We'll, I can figure out the mialage pretty straight foward. And I can figure out the fuel consumption.

The trick is how often do people shift anchorage? Do you stay in one spot for 30 days plus? Or do you pick up anchor and move every few days.

Or is it a little of everything. I have no idea how I'll react to having nothing but free time. (Never been like that before.)

All of this gets back down to the idea of budgeting for crusing. I can figure out food, or clothing expences. Maintance fo the boat seem roughly straight foward. But fuel costs for a power boat, I can figure out if I can figure out how much I'll be moveing it. And that part I can't settle on.

[rebel heart]

Just noticed this was in the power boat forum.... I'll take my idiot stamp now.

[boatman61]

Well I was anchored in Taylors Creek, Beaufort, NC for 2 mths and no one hassled me... I think you'll find it'll vary from place to place... and also on the weather... some really nice spots can be pigs in a blow... just move as and when.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by ViribusUnitis

The trick is how often do people shift anchorage? Do you stay in one spot for 30 days plus? Or do you pick up anchor and move every few days.

.

I'm glad you got this mob to realise your talking about POWER BOATS!!!! LOL

The long range power boat people that we have bumped into have been very similar to the sailing mob in the time per anchorage.

It mainly depends on the cruising location because of visas and weahter seasons.

For example the Niafu area of Tonga had a chap on a Nordhaven 50(ish) power boat. He stayed the same time as the rest of us. We all have to leave to get to 'safety' by hurricane season in November; but you can't get there too ealry or you would have missed the Galapago and French Polonesia... so too would be missing the next ports of Fiji and New Caladonia that need to be fitted in beforer rushing souith.
So boats could only stay 1 month in Tonga. Their BIG month is September.
so in that month theres 10 "must do's" then you have 3 days per anchorage....

Its beginning to sound bizzare, but this example is dramatised for the point

Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef some boats stay there for 6 months, but on the first northerly wind of october the whole anchorage clears out in 2 days!!!!!!!!!!!

So look at things like Visas in the Caribbean: you get 3 months in BVI and theres 10(??) sensational places to anchor = 9 days per place.

Or you can anchor at one exceptional place for 3 months! (But local laws may preclude that!!)

[Mardav]

Well if it helps you at all...on a typical 3 week trip from Central Florida to the Abacos and back we clock about 80 hours on the hour meters. That breaks down to about 48 hours of 'transit time' and the rest tooling around the Cays. We like to spend at least a couple of days in a nice anchorage and longer if we really like it, and we pretty much cruise the whole Abaco chain from Fox Town to Little Harbour. If we stayed longer, the hours would probably stay the same except for the generator, as we would stay longer at each stop so the distance travelled would not increase much.

[rtbates]

It's about the same as the length of the average string

[ViribusUnitis]

Originally Posted by rtbates

It's about the same as the length of the average string

That one I know the answer for. The average length of a peice of string is just a little bit shorter than what ever size peice of string you need.

I'm not sure how that helps me though.

[Mark Zarley]

To stay or not to stay(anchored) , is that the question? Or is the question, how much money on fuel do I want to spend? If we stay we do not burn as much fuel, if we go we burn it up. So if you have a going problem ,see your doctor, OOPS, this isn't about me it is about you. It really boils down to your budget. We would put more wheel time in if our fuel budget grew, or LOL if the price of deisel went down. So enjoy where your budget takes you , 6 months into it, your concerns will have completly changed and this little discussion will not amount to a hair on a gnats a_ _ . Enjoy!

[donradcliffe]

If you have a general plan, like Florida in the winter, Maine in the summer, you can look at the distance between them and figure out how much fuel you are going to burn--we generally go 150% of the straight-line distance.

The number of days moving vs staying put depends on where you are and where you want to go, but we move on the average every 3 to 5 days. Even going across the pacific we were anchored 2 out of every 3 nights. How far you move is up to you and is influenced by your general plan.

[Astrid]

Just for the sake of clarity, I presume when you say 'steam' you are figuratively referring to an internal combustion engine such as diesel or petrol, rather than an external combustion, live steam double or triple expansion engine (or turbine for that matter) powered small yacht? The reason I ask, is there are still some of those beasts out there on the water.