Powerboats and the price of fuel

[JBP]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

I'll just putter along in my little trawler at 7.2nm/hr burning 0.75gph.
and let the rest of the world figure this out.

Nice. I admit to periodic bouts of trawler envy.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Well I put 74 euros diesel into the yacht last year at 1.50 euros a litre I see today that garage in Greece is at 1.83 not too bad given it’s at 2.10 euros a litre here at the moment

One of the advantages (at least in perception) of really high fuel taxes.

$2/gal fuel in the US is roughly 25% tax (varies by state), so if the underlying fuel doubles in price, you are looking at $3.50/gal or an 75% increase (taxes are largely set up per gal not per dollar).

$8/gal fuel in Europe is roughly 81% tax, so same doubling of the underlying fuel cost and the consumer sees only a 19% increase.

Of course, in actual dollars (or euros), it's the same nominal increase but the shock factor will be greater in the low tax country.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by tuffr2

Humm, the price of oil has been going up way before Putin's war. Just look when the price started to climb. Putin's war is not helping but either is the president.

Just couldn't keep your personal politics out of it, could you? The price of gasoline is highly dependent on the price of oil, which is a global commodity that the President of the U.S. has almost no control over short of starting a war. It is highly dependent on the state of the global economy, the better the economy is the higher the demand for oil is and hence the higher the price of oil tends to be. So nice of you to give the current president credit for a strong economy, I guess.

[Tetepare]

Originally Posted by dkenny64

ethanol..instead of gasoline. politics strike again..and now its biting us in the butt.
or for that matter vegetable oil instead of diesel..yes the first diesel use peanut oil..
hum..
almost all carbon neutral fuels and renewable..

Not picking on you. Rslifskin suggested sugarcane. Others have suggested similar.

Everything has a price.

In our region, the demand for ethanol turned farm fields of vegetables into fields of corn, then two years ago beans.

Viti Levu has a ring of sugarcane, the lowlands are a monoculture.

Don't get me started on copra/ palm oil, those damned monocultures have destroyed so much Pacific ecology it's heartbreaking.

Ecologically, the damage from monocultures is extreme. They are effectively deserts.

As an environmentalist, I am constantly reading about the warming impact on various life forms. And, I've observed myself entire islands, and in my area hundreds of acres, converted to monocultural blights that produce zero food. Damned either way.


What's really frustrating is that in 1974 I promised myself that when gas hit $5/gallon I'd buy a discounted Cigarette boat. I am now too old. I wish it hit $5/gallon a decade ago.

[MicHughV]

I dated a girl for a long period of time that worked as a chef on a big sportsfishing boat, that would travel between New York and the Florida Keys.
The boat had a hired captain and deckhand besides her.
They would go thru' 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel just for a day's fishing...

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

Just couldn't keep your personal politics out of it, could you? The price of gasoline is highly dependent on the price of oil, which is a global commodity that the President of the U.S. has almost no control over short of starting a war. It is highly dependent on the state of the global economy, the better the economy is the higher the demand for oil is and hence the higher the price of oil tends to be. So nice of you to give the current president credit for a strong economy, I guess.

the current spike is entirely a function of volatility and nothing to do with demand , its almost entirely a function of the Russian action

[Manateeman]

The paddle of a manatee is a highly refined hydrodynamic force multiplier turning calories into forward propulsion at an excellent conversion ratio.
One manatee swam from Florida to Rhode Island and back in a summer looking for...well, manatettes.
Thus the following equations. Total pizzas consumed 180. Total beer 90 cases.
Miles per day minus hangover days 50. Calories per TON per mile, 1000.
Off gas production was significant , could be compressed as a fuel source ,but difficult to measure.
Now...let the Green Frog prove his carbon footprint is better.
Captain Mark

[MicHughV]

I saw the strangest thing one time. I was anchored near New Smyrna Beach, when I saw what I thought was a pod of dolphins coming my way at a really fast clip.

As they came past my boat, I was surprised to see that they weren't dolphins, but manatee's.

Usually, when one sees a manatee, it looks like they are barely capable of more than a slow walking speed, but they have quite a turn of speed. Google sez 15 mph and I can affirm that.

Only ever saw them moving that fast the one time.

[Baby tug]

I like rich people let their money fall out of their pockets and trickle down to me then I can afford my boat

[MicHughV]

I like rich people let their money fall out of their pockets and trickle down to me then I can afford my boat

Too true.....

Rich people most often get dissed by the the general public, but less one forget, rich people afford jobs, opportunities, etc, for many. The rich man's 90' sportfisherman boat didn't arrive out of fresh air, it had to be constructed by many, many hands and many many businesses....the fiberglass...the engines...the electronics....etc....a boat like that probably also has a permanent crew...captain, mate, etc, etc.. The millions it cost to build it pays the salaries of many people.
Sure, their " toy" maybe". but a "livelihood" for countless others..

[rslifkin]

Absolutely true. But at the same time, some portion of the rich end up hoarding wealth well beyond what they could ever dream of using. And they've almost certainly walked on the heads of others, paid others as little as they could get away with, etc. to get to that point.

[Allied39]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Absolutely true. But at the same time, some portion of the rich end up hoarding wealth well beyond what they could ever dream of using. And they've almost certainly walked on the heads of others, paid others as little as they could get away with, etc. to get to that point.

Yes and the world just isn't fair.....ask the homeless guy who says the same thing about you. I think you would put up a pretty fair argument to not have your assets stripped because someone has less.

Some always have more , some always have less. From where I sit I think it has a lot to do (but not always)with effort.......or lack there of.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Allied39

Yes and the world just isn't fair.....ask the homeless guy who says the same thing about you. I think you would put up a pretty fair argument to not have your assets stripped because someone has less.

Some always have more , some always have less. From where I sit I think it has a lot to do (but not always)with effort.......or lack there of.

The world definitely isn't fair. Some will absolutely put in more effort to have things than others as well. But at the lower end, you get some that don't even have the opportunities to do what many of us can to improve our lives, so they're in some ways trapped no matter how much work they put in. Some make it up the ladder from that point, but many don't, even after putting in many times the work some of us that started a little higher did.

Stripping people's assets to balance things out certainly isn't a good solution. But if we made it a little bit harder to accumulate more than you could ever think of using, that would likely move enough around that we could make things a whole lot better at the other end of the spectrum.

The upper end that I'm thinking of aren't the ones with the multi-million dollar house and brand new 70 foot boat that worked their butts of to get there. I'm thinking of the ones that could literally go out and buy a multi-million dollar house once a month without even noticing the money they'd spent. A couple percent difference in tax there is relatively insignificant to them, but a significant amount of money for most other people and purposes. Concentrating that amount of money into a few people that just sit on it doesn't do society any favors. Unfortunately, out of the people with that kind of wealth, very few put the money to any kind of good use. Most just use it to gain even more money.

[AndyEss]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Absolutely true. But at the same time, some portion of the rich end up hoarding wealth well beyond what they could ever dream of using. And they've almost certainly walked on the heads of others, paid others as little as they could get away with, etc. to get to that point.

Hoarding wealth? It is not like all they invest in is gold bars in a vault in their basement.
Whether you deposit money in a bank (and get essentially zero interest on that deposit these past years), buy bonds, stocks, etc, those monies get returned to the general economy in some fashion.
The accumulation of capital is what fuels investment into building an economy. No capital - and we live in palapas, row our log fishing boats out to sea, eat fruits off the trees. Sounds nice, but 7 billion people on this planet prevent this lifestyle being viable for 95% or so of humanity.
Some new taxes to at least somewhat equalize financial resources should be implemented. A tax on stock trades (not returns when sold) seems reasonable to me. This would also dampen out high frequency trading, which for the life of me, I don’t understand of what benefit it provides to increasing the efficiency of capital investment.

[Allied39]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

The world definitely isn't fair. Some will absolutely put in more effort to have things than others as well. But at the lower end, you get some that don't even have the opportunities to do what many of us can to improve our lives, so they're in some ways trapped no matter how much work they put in. Some make it up the ladder from that point, but many don't, even after putting in many times the work some of us that started a little higher did.

Stripping people's assets to balance things out certainly isn't a good solution. But if we made it a little bit harder to accumulate more than you could ever think of using, that would likely move enough around that we could make things a whole lot better at the other end of the spectrum.

The upper end that I'm thinking of aren't the ones with the multi-million dollar house and brand new 70 foot boat that worked their butts of to get there. I'm thinking of the ones that could literally go out and buy a multi-million dollar house once a month without even noticing the money they'd spent. A couple percent difference in tax there is relatively insignificant to them, but a significant amount of money for most other people and purposes. Concentrating that amount of money into a few people that just sit on it doesn't do society any favors. Unfortunately, out of the people with that kind of wealth, very few put the money to any kind of good use. Most just use it to gain even more money.

I agree with that, it's just a slippery slope. A lot, I dare say the majority, of society would consider owning a cruising vessel opulent. So it's all hi ho pip and dandy to start making things harder for anyone who has too much money. The problem arises when it comes to who says how much is too much. Hopefully your not in the too much bracket, but like I say, there will always be someone with less.
Anyhow, I dont want this to enter into a political debate, so I will leave it at that.